AN EMERGENCY PREPARES A NEXT GENERATION EMERGENCY DISASTER SERVICES VOLUNTEER LEADER
She didn’t reflect upon it until recently, years after she had been a Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services volunteer.
A tornado swept through her childhood hometown that was so ingrained in her memory, she calls herself a survivor years later.
“I didn’t think much about that probably until the last year or two. Like, ‘Why do I do this?’” Gretchen Luke, a recent Doing the Most Good awardee for her work with EDS, said.
“May 31, 1985 – the Niles, Ohio, Wheatland, Pennsylvania tornado, I’m a survivor of that one,” Luke, who was 13 then, said. “That might have something to do with it. I might have a little perspective of what goes on from the survivor’s side. I’m just happy to, like a previous coworker said, be able and willing to help.”
Luke explained, “Someone I used to work with made a comment, probably about 20 years ago, and it stuck with me since. Sometimes, you come across people who can help. Sometimes, you come across people who are willing to help. Sometimes, you come across somebody who can do both. Then, you are truly blessed. I’m a very detailed organizer and am calm in emergency situations. When I realized I could do this type of work, and I wanted to, I pursued it, specifically Salvation Army over a different disaster responder. I can always pray with people. That’s something that is encouraged in The Salvation Army. Being a Christian, that’s something my husband [Ken] and I agreed would be a good fit.”
When she gets the call to support emergency disaster efforts for things like tornado and flood recovery or widespread meal distribution in 2020 in the wake of COVID-19, Luke thinks first of her availability and the solemn duty of her work.
“When I get that call, my first thought is, ‘Am I available? Am I able to do this?’” Luke said. “Is it exciting? Yes and no. I want to be able to help. But, at the same time when I get a call, it means someone is in distress. I don’t like that at all. I would rather have, what we call, blue skies, and there are no instances. That’s not reality. I like it when I have the availability to show up.”
Luke’s Salvation Army EDS work includes operating the Red Shield mobile canteen that goes to the front lines of emergency scenes to help front-line workers and people affected by the emergency.
In 2021, The Salvation Army helped more than 7.7 million people in disaster situations. Most recently, EDS efforts have been focused on the Ukraine region conflict and on extreme spring weather in parts of the U.S.
Incident command systems are essential to The Salvation Army’s deployment response to developing emergencies, establishing lines of command and communications. They are installed at disaster sites and recovery operations.
Luke served as operations chief as part of the incident command system for the COVID-19 response in 2020 in St. Louis during the historic global pandemic.
She has taken deployments to Council Bluffs, Iowa, the Missouri Bootheel, and Jefferson City, Mo., in addition to St. Louis and south-central Missouri, and worked as a safety officer.
In December 2021, she received a call for a tornado in Edwardsville, Ill., which was one stop along a deadly swath the tornado storm hit over several states. In Edwardsville, the massive roof of an Amazon warehouse was ripped from the building, an occurrence that drew national attention.
Luke was assigned to operate canteen services and distribute local restaurants and residents’ food donations, which kept operations for workers and firefighters going.
Talking about the situation is a sensitive matter for Luke.
“I feel that our job is to be positive,” Luke said. “You want to be positive, supportive and encouraging.”
In the eight years since joining The Salvation Army in the St. Louis region, Luke found a home in Emergency Disaster Services as a volunteer, called by coworkers as a model to follow.
“Gretchen Luke has become one of the Midland Division's most reliable and experienced Emergency Disaster Services volunteers,” Martin Rueter, Divisional Director of Emergency Disaster Services, said. “Her dedication and excellence have been apparent in meeting and surpassing expectations in numerous capacities.”
Rueter said, "Gretchen is such a great EDS volunteer because she possesses the qualities that I wish all volunteers would exhibit: she is mission-driven, her actions reflect a genuine passion for helping others, she is eager to take initiative on tasks with a creative approach, and she is truly a team player. Most importantly, Gretchen is selfless and humble to her contribution to EDS."
Luke and her husband had planned roughly a decade ago to city-hop every two years from their previous home in Dayton, Ohio, after they became empty nesters, she said. The first city was Augusta, Georgia, where Luke volunteered for The Salvation Army and started with a training exercise.
After landing in St. Louis as the second city on their list, it is where they decided to stay (at least for now) and buy a house.
“It’s just kind of snowballed,” Luke said. “We started planting roots. My husband and I came here for him to work for Boeing. He joined the flight club, got his private pilot’s certificate, and has continued with that. I started putting my roots down in The Salvation Army. Here we are eight years later.”
If you would like to volunteer your time to The Salvation Army EDS services, please visit disaster.salvationarmyusa.org or disaster.salvationarmyusa.org/volunteer/new for details.
