News Coverage from WXXI

Local volunteer helps people hit by the devastation in the Bahamas

It’s been about a month now since Hurricane Dorian decimated parts of the Bahamas. A local man is in that area this week trying to help out where he can.

Tom Wilson has done this before, about 15 times before, as part of his volunteer work with an organization called Hope Force.  The non-profit group focuses on disaster response, and Wilson, who is retired and lives in Geneseo, is on Grand Bahamas Island for about week, in the Freeport area.

He says there’s been some progress in that region on getting electricity back on line, but a number of homes still have major damage from that Category 5 hurricane, and that’s what he and his fellow volunteers are working on.

“Mucking out their houses, but getting all the wet stuff out of their houses, the drywall and the carpeting and  the insulation if they had any, although most of the places down here don’t have insulation. And then we’re also tarping roofs, so there was wind damage to people’s roofs, as well as the flood damage,” Wilson said.

Hope Force is a Christian-based organization, and Wilson says doing these kinds of projects fits in well with his faith.

“If I can come help people by putting tarps on the roofs, which, I’m on the tarping teams today, it’s a blessing to them to keep the water out of their houses for 6 or 8 or 10 months, whatever it takes, and it blesses me too, it just makes me feel good that I’m serving somebody,” Wilson said.