Many of you may have heard about the devastating tornadoes that hit Rutherford County on Friday. Wesley & I were traveling to Alabama to visit my grandparents when I received a text message from my brother "BIG tornado in Murfreesboro." As I reached to answer the text, my mom called with the same information. Within a few minutes, we were entering Muscle Shoals (where my grandparents live) welcomed by numerous tornado sirens. Numerous counties in Middle Tennessee and North Alabama had terrible storms-some including tornadoes on Friday.
Thankfully, we arrived safely at my grandparents' and I was able to talk to several friends in Murfreesboro to find out that they were safe. Nearly everyone I have talked to in the following days has said, "I watched it from my front door," or "It turned before it got to my house." We are so thankful and blessed that none of our church family or friends were injured in the storms.
One of the hardest hit areas is located in the Northfield Elementary school zone (the school where I worked for 6 years).
My kindergarten class at Ridgeview has been email pen pals with
Brittney's class at Northfield. Today, they sent the sweetest email asking if everyone was okay (from families to houses to pets and cars!) & wrote cards to send to them. We also will be hosting a money drive to benefit the families at Northfield who have been displaced from the storms. We are hoping that everyone will help by bringing loose change, cash, or even checks made to Ridgeview Elementary. If you would like to help the Northfield families, you can get your money to me or take your donation to Northfield if you are in Murfreesboro.
They are also accepting gift cards to benefit the families.
There were two deaths from the tornado in Murfreesboro-Kori Bryant and her 9 week old daughter, Olivia. The husband/father, John Bryant, is in the hospital with injuries he sustained. If you would like to help this family, you can click
HERE.
I know that our church family at
East Main worked hard this weekend to help with clean-up and providing care packages for victims and workers. If you would like to help with that endeavor (as I am sure it will continue for quite awhile), please email me (denise@skeltonphotography.com) and I can give you more information.
Christy & Dave are both very musical (Dave is a high school band director), so Mikey has no choice but to be musical too! They had written out the notes for Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star & had a paper over the keys with the correct letters. Mikey could play the song! It was amazing! I wasn't able to get pictures of him playing on Saturday, so Sunday morning I grabbed some shots before we left for worship.
