The project was originally launched in response to the devastating tornado outbreak in April of 2011. We saw the wreckage on the news from our surrounding areas, and we wanted to help out but we could not see any obvious way to do it. As we started looking into options we also began to have a curiosity, "what would disaster relief work look like if Jesus were to do it"? Our initial project took us
to Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, for a water drive to help survivors and volunteers in the Huntsville area of Alabama. This project revolved around students donating a ‘care package’ of a case of water and ‘$1’ to help move it to the affected area. This soon became 'Care+1'. During the next several months of responding to tornadoes in Georgia, Alabama, and Missouri, Care+1 grew from raising supplies to include fielding teams doing chainsaw, debris removal and rebuilding. Over that initial summer we began to catch a glimpse of what it might look like if Jesus were responding to disasters. What we saw was service, we saw people who had lost everything helping their neighbors look through the ruble of their homes for heirlooms and pictures. We saw strangers show up from all over the country to volunteer. We began to see that service had a healing affect on those who lived through the destruction and it also gave a sense of purpose to those gave up their own time and resources to the volunteers.
