YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Within hours after the Indonesia earthquake last Saturday, 27 May, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned a local chapel in Solo into a food kitchen. By Sunday night, the food kitchen was relocated to a chapel in Yogyakarta, the city that suffered most of the destruction.
Immediately following the earthquake, local Church leaders assessed the critical needs of the survivors and determined that food was urgently needed. Members then arrived at the first food kitchen location and began preparing meals.
Volunteers spent all of Saturday night preparing food. By Sunday morning 1,500 meals were ready for delivery. Since then, approximately 2,000 meals have been prepared each day for delivery.
Many of the members helping in the food kitchen are the same members who volunteered in relief efforts after the Merapi volcano eruption last week.
A local Church leader in Surakarta expressed his amazement at how quickly the Church was able to provide food for “the starving people in the streets.”
Several community food kitchens were unable to operate as they had no food. The Church provided two trucks filled will rice, cooking oil, sugar and vegetables for those food kitchens in need.
In addition to providing food, the Church immediately supplied hospitals with cots, blankets, mattresses and refrigerators. A 747 filled with eight semi-truckloads of relief supplies from the Church arrived in Indonesia yesterday.
*This story has been updated since it was previously published on 1 June 2006.