The North Carolina State Disaster Relief Warehouse in Statesville, North Carolina, United States, has recently become a crucial training ground for Adventist Community Services (ACS), the humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.

Throughout March, teams from across the North American Division, which includes the United States, Canada, and Bermuda, are receiving hands-on training in how to manage large-scale disaster response operations.

The training focuses on how to oversee Multi-Agency Warehouses (MAW), which serve as central locations for receiving, organizing, and distributing donated supplies to communities affected by natural disasters. These warehouses are often operated in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), state emergency management agencies, and local governments.

Charlene Sargent, disaster services director for the Pacific Union Conference and one of the program’s lead instructors, says the initiative is part of a larger effort to build a comprehensive training model for ACS warehouse teams.

“We have an agreement with FEMA to be the experts, the subject matter experts, in donations management to provide these services,” said Sargent. “But we’re trying to develop the document to help our management teams be able to do a better job and train folks.”

The importance of such coordination was highlighted on March 11, 2025, when North Carolina Governor Josh Stein visited the warehouse. Touring the 635,000-square-foot facility, the governor met with David Graham, ACS director for the Carolina Conference, who shared the background of the inter-agency collaboration and explained the scale of the warehouse’s operations. The visit, which included representatives from FEMA and state emergency agencies, underscored the effective partnerships working to meet urgent needs on the ground.

Each week, approximately 10 trainees from across the region—including as far as Alaska and Canada—arrive in Statesville for immersive training. In addition to learning warehouse logistics and inventory systems, volunteers are introduced to real-time disaster response activities, equipping them to return home ready to lead local relief efforts.

Hands-on experience includes sorting, labeling, and preparing donation boxes based on specific requests from affected communities. Sargent explained why this step is vital:

“If you don’t know what’s in the box, you can’t just hand it to someone and say, ‘Well, here, whatever’s in it, see what you can use.’ This is a key part of being effective in meeting the needs.”

ACS’s disaster response work is driven largely by volunteers, making this training program essential for building a capable and deployable team.

“We would love it if we could staff at all with our Adventist membership,” Sargent noted. “But there hasn’t been enough interest, so we’re using volunteers from everywhere. We are usually the management team, but we could certainly use a lot more volunteers who understand that the work we do here is beneficial for all of the survivors.”

As the warehouse continues to serve both immediate and long-term disaster relief efforts, volunteers are urgently needed—from entry-level tasks like sorting supplies to leadership roles involving logistics and operations planning.

The Statesville facility was developed following the impact of Hurricane Helene. Its operation helps ensure that survivors receive the basic necessities they need—such as clothing, hygiene kits, and emergency supplies—as they begin the difficult journey of rebuilding their lives.

The original article was published on the North American Division news site.