United Methodist relief group to build center in S.L.

Salt Lake City will soon become home to an arm of yet another multimillion-dollar faith-based relief agency, this one intended to help ease suffering for disaster victims in the Western U.S. and along the Pacific Rim.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief is finishing negotiations on the lease of what will become a 23,000-square-foot warehousing and distribution depot near Franklin Covey Field downtown. Begun in 1940 in response to the violence and suffering caused by World War II, UMCOR has programs active in more than 100 countries, varying from health and world hunger to poverty.

The new center will complement UMCOR's existing Sager Brown warehousing and distribution headquarters in Louisiana, according to Sam Dixon, deputy general secretary of UMCOR in New York.

He said the primary reason for Salt Lake's selection is its geographic locations as the "crossroads of the West" and the fact that lease rates here are less costly than they would be on the West Coast.

The agency also "did a bit of due diligence and had people with firsthand experience in Salt Lake City. The reputation of the work force there is very high," as is volunteer activity per capita, he said.

Though the depot will only have two full-time employees at the outset, Brown said he believes there will be a regular rotation of volunteers — both Methodists and those of other faiths — to participate in assembling relief supplies including hygiene and other kits the agency specializes in producing. "We have a whole list of kits and directions for how they are assembled and used, so we make intensive use of volunteers."

That free labor will come not just from the local community, he said, but from United Methodist congregations nationwide, who look for "mission trip" opportunities where volunteers spend a week or two serving in communities outside their own areas.

The local depot will be about one-third the size of the agency's Louisiana facility, which has shipped about 500 tons of relief supplies to various locations in the past year. Dixon said he expects about 100 tons of supplies to be distributed through the Salt Lake depot the first year, depending on needs in the western jurisdiction.

Dixon said UMCOR is looking to partner with Crossroads Urban Center, a local food co-operative and food pantry, to possibly share warehouse space and equipment. Glenn Bailey, executive director of Crossroads, said his agency currently has staffing and offices in a warehouse near the UMCOR facility, and about 60 volunteer teams that deliver food locally to those in need.