As the rest of the country celebrated the Fourth of July with backyard barbecues and firework displays, tragedy struck in central Texas.
In the days that followed, the world looked on to the destruction as the race to search for survivors and assess the damages began.
In central Ohio, Philip Bassham understood what it felt like to lose everything. When a tornado swept through central Ohio in February 2024, Bassham lost his home.
The lead pastor of Discovery Church in Gahanna said he saw the power of community come together to support him and his family in their time of need. Now, a year later, he welcomed a friend from Texas into his home during the July 2025 crisis.
“I saw, you know, the beauty of humanity, like people that I’d never even met or knew were helping us in remarkable ways to rebuild after the tragedy. And so, we were wanting to do something,” he said.
When he learned that an aid agency based in Washington Court House, Day 41 Disaster Relief, was seeking Columbus-area sites to collect donations for central Texas flood survivors and first responders, Bassham’s church congregation was on board.
“We really like to help our community, whether they’re in town or 13,300 miles away,” he said. “So, we jumped on.”
Along with The Naz Church in Grove City, Discovery Church took on the effort in central Ohio to collect funds and aid items to donate in partnership with Day 41 in the week of July 7-11.
After awaiting the go-ahead to drop them off, the items embarked on the 16-hour drive down to central Texas on July 18.
A team member from Day 41, Kris Pokorny, said he estimated the amount the group collected totaled around $60,000 between monetary donations and supplies since July 8.
This included collections from both Discovery and The Naz alongside Pokorny’s church in Washington Court House, Grace Community Church, and a church in Elizabethton, Tennessee, that also got involved.
From Discovery Church, 30 extra-large cardboard boxes were packaged up and $2,400 were collected to be sent to Texas, Bassham said. Half of the funds came from the church itself, while the other half came from people he had never met.
“So many of these people, they said, ‘It’s just horrific, and I could only imagine being in that or having a loved one there, and I wanted to make sure that if I had someone in that, I would want other people to help them too,'” Bassham recounted.
Providing peace in the chaos
Among 28,000 bottles of water, hygiene products and cleaning supplies, people brought things that signaled the humanity of the operation, including can openers to provide immediate access to food and books for children.
“It really reinforces the kindness of humanity and that there are still people that are around that are kind,” Bassham said.
“It is one of those things where whenever we can see and help somebody and bring a smile to someone’s face and where they can have peace and calm in a time where chaos should actually be their response… It’s such a remarkable thing.”
Day 41 launched in the fall of 2024, when a group of Pokorny’s friends and family members saw the destruction from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and decided to show up to help.
Now, moving on to the crew’s second large-scale disaster-relief effort, Pokorny said his team has been moved by several contacts who received aid in North Carolina that are now offering to provide help to those affected in Texas.
Pokorny explained the best way to give, moving forward, would be through an Amazon Wish List, where affected community members can directly add their specific needs. He said the organization would be posting other updates on its Facebook page.
The goal is to be a voice for the people who are struggling, Pokorny said.
“The needs don’t go away, but we’ve learned with Helene that there are people that are going to be struggling from that disaster event for years,” he said.
This article was made possible by support from the Center for HumanKindness at The Columbus Foundation, which has partnered with The Columbus Dispatch to profile those making our community a better place. Help us inspire kindness by suggesting people, initiatives or organizations for Reporter Sophia Veneziano to profile. She can be reached at sveneziano@dispatch.com. Learn more at Dispatch.com/Kindness. The Dispatch retains full editorial independence for all content.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Truckload of hope: Relief aid from central Ohio to help Texas flood survivors
Reporting by Sophia Veneziano, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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