Tabor College, the Mennonite Brethren college in Hillsboro, Kansas, contributed to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts by donating proceeds from the Bluejays’ Sept. 2, 2017, football game with Morningside College, a private college affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Sioux City, Iowa, to Samaritan’s Purse.
Barkman Honey, a local business owned and operated by Brent and Lynette Barkman, who attend Hillsboro MB Church, agreed to match proceeds from the game.
Rusty Allen, Tabor College vice president of athletics, says that donations totaled $11,000.
The Tabor College student body consists of a number of young men and women from Houston and the surrounding areas, and when the mother of current Bluejay football player and Texan Joseph Tii, a freshman from Round Rock, Texas, contacted the college about teaming up with organizations she represents to provide relief, it didn’t take long for Tabor College to say “absolutely.”
According to the Samaritan’s Purse website, Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport Aug. 25, 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds reaching 130 miles per hour. Harvey dumped more than 4 feet of rain in the Houston area and is the strongest storm to hit the United States in more than 10 years. As many as 50 deaths have been reported, and more than 100,000 homes are reported to be damaged or destroyed.
Photo credit: Vance Frick, Tabor College
Read more from:
Tabor College: Press release announcing fund raising efforts http://www.taborbluejays.com/article/2935.php
Samaritan’s Purse: Read updates on relief efforts in Texas https://www.samaritanspurse.org/disaster/hurricane-harvey/
Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor. She joined the CL staff in September 2017 with six years of experience as a professional journalist. Shafer is an award-winning writer, having received three 2016 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence and an Evangelical Press Association Higher Goals award in 2022. Shafer graduated from Tabor College in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in Communications/Journalism and Biblical/Religious Studies. She and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
