VARNEY — Volunteers from all over the country have converged on flood-stricken Mingo County to help residents recover from last week’s flash flood.

Logan County Delegate Ralph Rodighiero, a UPS driver, and co-workers Mark Vance, Gene Harrison, Paul Clark and Hurston Vinson, all collected donations in UPS trucks on Saturday and delivered more than $10,000 in donations to Varney Grade School, Matewan Town Hall and Burch High School.

Rodighiero and his co-workers were at the Logan Walmart from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday collecting much-needed items like water, canned foods, blankets, diapers, cleaning supplies, dog and cat food and other materials. Several people gave cash and the drivers took the money in to Walmart to buy items. Walmart gave the drivers a 10 percent discount on their purchases. They also took some of the money to Lowes and bought lime, water hoses and wheelbarrows at a discount.

Vinson is the assistant football and baseball coach at Burch High School. His baseball players, along with head coach James “Butch” Joplin, assisted with unloading trucks and Vinson’s church, Toney Christian Fellowship from Lincoln County, assisted with the distribution of the items, which were stored in the Burch High School cafeteria. Tables throughout the cafeteria were completely full.

Outside Matewan Town Hall, members of the Cumberland Gap (Tenn.) Baptist Association Mass Feeding Unit of the Southern Baptist Convention prepared hot meals for flood victims and volunteers. Helping with the distribution of the food was Williamson High School Girls Basketball Coach Robin Porter, a member of the East Williamson Baptist Church. She was assisting Kathy Stockton from the Morristown, Tenn., area, who came to help flood victims. Her daughter, Missy Mounts, is a Matewan resident who volunteered with her parents when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and after tornadoes ripped through western Tennessee recently.

Stockton said her daughter called after the May 9 flooding and told her mother “I got flooded,” so the Stocktons headed north to West Virginia to lend a hand.

“We came up when we heard about the flooding,” Stockton said. “We wanted to come and help. You can’t outgive. I am so blessed by this experience.”

Toney Christian Fellowship Pastor Donnie Wells said his church wanted to help Vinson in his flood-relief effort.

“We knew they had a need and a lot of our young people and their parents decided that we couldn’t do anything there, so we thought we’d come and donate our labor,” Wells said. “Right outside the school here, a third of the road is gone. We thank God that He opened the door for us to be able to do this. We brought a truckload and Hurston had his Jeep packed full. He works with the youth over in this area and so we came over. We were glad to get to come over to help them.”

At the old Cline Grade School building on Monday, Red Cross workers were handing out hot meals to flood victims in the Baisden area along Gilbert Creek.

Red Cross volunteers Bob Whisnant of Gastonia, N.C., and Marcus Lineberger of Salisbury, N.C., said the Red Cross truck bringing hot meals to the residents will be in the area through the end of the week. They said the truck brings about 200 hot meals at a time.

Caitlin Cline, who lives just up the road from Cline Grade, rode her four-wheeler to Cline Grade to pick up meals.

Cline, a sophomore at Gilbert High School, said that while the area is recovering, she isn’t sure when she’ll get to go back to school.

“The gym floor is torn up,” Cline said. “I’m doubting we’ll get to go back to school this year.”

Also helping with the Red Cross food truck was Larry Etchison of Preston County and Julie Robertson of Marietta, Ohio. Etchison works with the River Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, while Robertson works with the Mid-Ohio Valley Chapter.

At Varney Grade School, Michelle Cantrell helped the UPS drivers unload their trucks. Cantrell said many flood victims don’t know that so much is available at the flood shelters.

“We’ve got showers and phones set up for people to use and AT&T has set up a mobile cell phone tower so people can get a cell phone signal over here,” Cantrell said. “We’ve got hot meals for whoever wants one. We’ve also got water, cleaning supplies, clothes and meals ready to eat (MREs). We’ve got 50-pound bags of potatoes and diapers.”

The Fishes and Loaves Food Ministry was set up at Varney Grade School giving out hot meals. Several Varney residents were flooded.

Trisha Feeney of Trace Creek along Corridor G near Myrtle brought donations. Feeney works with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. Feeney said OVEC had sent 25 volunteers to help flood victims.

The Monaville unit of the West Virginia National Guard was also working throughout Mingo County. Mingo County Sheriff’s Deputy Barry Moore, a Matewan native and also a member of the Monaville unit, said he was glad to get to help his neighbors recover from the flooding.

“I was over here working in my street clothes and they activated my unit,” Moore said. “I told them I wanted to help the people in Matewan.”

Signs along Gilbert Creek thanked Massey Energy and other companies for sending in workers and heavy equipment to assist with the flood recovery.

Currently, seven schools in Mingo County are closed. Gilbert Elementary and Gilbert High School suffered the most severe flooding and most likely will be closed throughout the end of the school year as crews try to clean up the mess left after several feet of flood water invaded the school buildings. Matewan Elementary, Matewan Middle School and Matewan High School are all closed, as are Burch High and Burch Middle School.

Gilbert Elementary School Principal Delmer Blankenship said he sees life in Gilbert getting back to normal “a little more every day.”

He said, though, that he doubts the Gilbert-area schools will be open by the end of this school year.

Lisa Adkins, a teacher at Gilbert High School, said the biggest worry for students now is graduation.

“They want to graduate at Gilbert High School on the football field, but there’s all that trash and debris and then there’s no parking now,” Adkins said. “Man, Matewan and Westside have all offered their gyms for Gilbert’s graduation, but the kids want to have it here.”

Blankenship said he can’t blame the GHS seniors for wanting to have their commencement ceremony at their home school.

“Thirty years from now, they will look back on graduation and wish they would have had it here,” Blankenship said. “I hope they can find a way to have graduation at Gilbert High School.”

Volunteers also worked in Musick Bottom from Lexington, Ky., and people came from as far away a New Jersey, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee to lend a hand. Crews were in Mingo County this morning from Nitro and Pinch in West Virginia.