DEBBIE WACHTER/New Castle News Katie Peterson, left, director of the Mission Barn, helps volunteer Betsy Brown fill bucket with cleaning supplies for East Palestine and other disaster locations.

A Methodist minister who pastors a church in East Palestine, Ohio, said buckets supplied by the Mission Barn in Shenango Township have proven to be a godsend to the residents there.

“Many people feel they need to be safe and scrub their houses and wash all their clothes,” said Pastor Fritz Nelson of First United Presbyterian Church, which is about a mile from the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment site.

Nelson’s church has a direct connection with the Mission Barn in Shenango Township, formerly the Eastbrook Mission Barn, where volunteers assembled and sent 300 buckets of specific cleaning supplies to residents of East Palestine after the train accident and the subsequent burning off of reported toxic chemicals.

The buckets included sponges, cloths, specific cleaning liquids, laundry detergents, trash bags and other items.

“It all was sent out within three hours with other donations,” said Katie Peterson, the Mission Barn director. “The purpose of the buckets is to help the town residents clean their homes from top to bottom, inside and out.”

The Mission Barn has been fulfilling its purpose of providing buckets filled with cleaning supplies to disaster areas throughout the United States. Its other role is to build ramps for wheelchair-bound people in the community. It recently moved from its former Eastbrook, Hickory Township, location to a warehouse previously occupied by Praxair, on Columbus Drive. It is planning an open house at that location for 1 to 5 p.m. March 26.

Nelson, who coordinated receiving the Mission Barn buckets from the East Palestine end, said the buckets were “indispensable.

“One of the biggest needs in East Palestine has been for cleaning,” he said.

“There is a huge demand for everything from laundry soap, to cleaning detergents to scrub brushes to face masks, and the buckets Katie has supplied are perfect for them.”

One parishioner at Nelson’s church told him that everything they needed was in the bucket. The Methodist churches staged a distribution site the Saturday after the evacuation was lifted.

While a lot of people donated needed buckets and other cleaning supplies, people were having trouble carrying it all, he said. But the Mission Barn buckets contained it all and people could just grab a bucket and go.

Nelson also is pastor at a church in Columbiana, Ohio, which had previously packed about 40 similar buckets that were waiting to go to a distribution site, so those were added to the Mission Barn’s supply in East Palestine.

“They were all gone in three hours that day,” he said, adding that more have come into the town from the Salvation Army.

“They’re just a really, really great tool,” Nelson said. “I would really encourage anyone who is thinking about responding to this or any other disaster with cleaning supplies to make buckets.”

Instructions are available on what to put into the buckets, which is a very specific list of supplies proven as useful after a disaster, in quantities that have been useful and fit into the buckets, Nelson said. He refers people to Church World Service, an international disaster relief organization that is affiliated with the National Council of Churches. That organization, founded after World War II, developed the disaster relief bucket, he said.

Nelson said Wednesday the mood among the people in East Palestine remains mixed.

“There is a lot of fear, anger, suspicion and resignation,” he said. “There is hope, optimism and people are banding together, but there are a lot of questions about the long-term safety of the community and the situation.”

A lot of people are back in their homes, but a lot of people have not returned home, he said,”and it’s hard to get a sense of what ‘a lot’ is. My parishioners who live nearest to the crash site say they estimate that somewhere between a third and half of their neighbors haven’t come back yet. They know this because their houses stay dark all night long.”

He said people also are experiencing frustration, because the national news media “have portrayed the town as small, poor and backward.”

And while there is gratitude for the huge amount of support, there’s also a wish that people would give them a little space, he emphasized.

“It’s challenging for a small town that suddenly has become the center of attention.”

Everyone is coping in their own ways, he continued. “I’ve been calling this a disaster of perception. That means that people are responding to how they perceive their own risk.”

The actual risk right now is unknown, he continued, and while some feel perfectly safe and are back in their homes, others feel like they can’t go back into their houses at all.

“There’s huge concern by everybody about what happens five or 10 years from now, regarding health concerns and health risks,” Nelson said, “and people who are feeling safe back in their homes are worried about the longterm effects.”

The picture now is that no cows have died in the fields, most people’s dogs are OK, and chickens are laying eggs again, he said, and the water in East Palestine is safe to drink. Yet at the same time, fish are dying, he said.

Nelson pointed out the public water supply there is heavily tested, and the deep water aquifer where the drinking water comes from is designed not to be affected by surface pollution.

“That is my understanding, but I am a church pastor, not a chemist,” Nelson said, adding, “Surface water is a major issue. Everyone is in agreement with that.”

As for the air quality, Nelson said he was first back in town Thursday after the disaster, “and you could tell something was off. It just felt wrong. As the days passed, it largely faded.”

Church was held that Sunday in the parish, which is located next to Sulphur Run, a creek flows through the downtown and joins Leslie Run, which is downstream. Leslie Run is the stream that’s been talked about a lot, Nelson said. It flows straight south into the Little Beaver Creek and the Ohio River.

As the townspeople continue to clean up and sanitize their homes, Nelson and Peterson both ask that anyone who wants to donate to the cause should think about making buckets of cleaning supplies.

“They also are asking for prayers and monetary donations to help the families,” Peterson said.

Anyone who wants to donate may do so through the website thewaystationinc.org, a community outreach established for East Palestine.