Hope Village Coordinator Steve Carbno points to an “Open” sign on the side of the volunteer center’s dining tent. The tent went up on May 15 after several delays due to weather.

After several nature-related false starts, the dining tent finally went up at Hope Village on Wednesday afternoon.

Hope Village Coordinator Steve Carbno had originally intended to raise the tent back on April 5, but the snow remained a problem. For the next few weeks, Carbno continued to line up volunteers, only to have to cancel at the last minute due to more snow, a flood of rapidly melting snow and unsafe winds.

Volunteers help install Hope Village’s dining tent on Wednesday, May 15.

Finally, on May 15, Carbno enlisted the services of AmeriCorps NCCC Oak 1 team that is regularly assigned to the Recovery Warehouse and the group from Our Savior Lutheran Church out of Aurora, Ill., which knocked off a little early from its rebuild project to help hoist the tent.

Mel Erickson of First Assembly Church in Minot guided the team members through raising the 54-foot tent. Hope Village had purchased the tent from Erickson last year, using it as a dining facility as well as a place for devotionals and unwinding after a day’s rebuild.

Mel Erickson pauses after placing working atop Hope Village’s dining tent. The volunteer center for flood relief purchased the tent from Erickson, a member of First Assembly of God in Minot.

As the tent was going up, a group from First Lutheran Church out of Hayward, Wisc., arrived to Hope Village. As the four-member team filed out of the car, they saw the progress and remarked that they’d been present in September when the tent came down for the winter, so it was wholly appropriate that they be back when it went up again.

Riley Racine, 9, smiles as he hands Pastor Paul Krueger, Hope Village’s director, an envelope containing $180. Riley raised the money for Hope Village by selling his xBox.

Over the weekend, Riley Racine, 9, a member of Our Savior Lutheran Church, gave Pastor Paul Kruger an envelope containing $180 in cash.

Riley’s family had been flooded and he explained to Krueger that he had sold his Xbox in order to donate the money to Hope Village.

Instead of risking unsafe conditions, coordinator Steve Carbno delayed raising the tent and instead is hoping that it will come together in the near future.

In the meantime, though, facilities coordinator Van Tvedt has been finalizing the volunteer center’s new kitchen unit, which needed a few touches before being put into service. After hooking up electricity, water and sewer, chef Jennifer Kelley was able to prepare the first meal in the mobile kitchen on Sunday, cooking for the Sacramento Presbytery group and an AmeriCorps NCCC team.

Until the tent is raised, Hope Village volunteers will continue to eat their meals at Our Savior Lutheran Church. Before the unit arrived, the volunteers’ meals were prepared and served at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church.

Community volunteers are still needed to help serve meals on the campus. Breakfast volunteers are needed from 6:30 to 7:45 a.m. and volunteers for the evening meal are asked to help from 5:30 to about 7:45 p.m. every day. To sign up, please contact Steve or Dominic at 701-240-1495 or localvolunteers@hopevillageND.org.

Hope Village coordinator Steve Carbno welcomes the driver who delivered the volunteer center’s new mobile kitchen on Saturday.

The 30-foot kitchen trailer, built by All Pro Manufacturing out of Hattiesburg, Miss., features two convection ovens, a stovetop, tilt skillet and griddle. It also has a sandwich-making stand and refrigeration as well as a conventional oven.

Hope Village purchased and furnished the unit with grants from Lutheran Church Missouri Synod World Relief and the Otto Bremer Foundation.

The unit still needs to be hooked up to electrical power and water, but for now, having it on campus is a step forward.

“It’s a relief to finally have kitchen on site,” said Jennifer Kelley, the chef at Hope Village. “I look forward to cooking for the volunteers this summer on the premises.”

Since mid-April, the out-of-town volunteers have stayed on the Hope Village campus but eaten meals at St. Mark’s Lutheran and Our Savior Lutheran churches.

Hope Village’s director, Pastor Paul Krueger of Our Savior Lutheran Church, smiles out the window of the volunteer center’s new mobile kitchen, which was delivered on May 4.

The unit replaces a mobile kitchen from Orphan Grain Train, which had been used to prepare meals for over 2,000 Hope Village. That unit was returned to Orphan Grain Train to be made available to be dispatched to other disasters.

A sudden spring in Minot, which had been a long time coming, caused a rapid snow melt on the Hope Village campus. As a result, water flowed rapidly from the back of the campus, through the parking lot of Our Savior Lutheran Church and then under the dining tent floor before making its way to the drainage ditch on 37^th Avenue.

On Saturday, coordinator Steve Carbno had expected to use 20 volunteers to put up the tent and then move chairs and tables into the dining area, but instead wound up creating a dike and diverting water around the tent.

Hope Village volunteers enjoy meals at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Minot, which has offered its kitchen until the new unit is in place on the Hope Village campus.

He will try again on Friday to put it in place.

By that time, it’s hoped that the kitchen trailer unit will have been delivered. The unit, which was expected in late March, will still require water and electrical hook-ups before its debut for preparation of meals for volunteers.

In the meantime, the rebuild teams are making do on the Hope Village campus. The trailers with showers and toilets are fully functional and volunteer teams from Love of Christ Lutheran Church from St. Cloud and North Lancaster Conference out of Ephrata, Penn., joined St John’s Lutheran from Bakersfield, Calif., this week to help rebuild Minot.

The teams are enjoying breakfast at OSLC, but St. Mark’s continues to host evening meals for the groups.

Minot’s rebuild has continued through the winter, but at a slower pace. This month, Hope Village began scheduling teams to stay on campus, but so far, the weather has been inhospitable.

Over the past two weeks, volunteers have come to Minot to assist in the rebuild. One team, First Presbyterian from Fargo, stayed on the Hope Village campus for a weekend service trip but used the shower facilities at the YMCA and ate elsewhere.

Last week, a team from Lakeview Lutheran from Madison, Wis., served and stayed at First Lutheran Church.

Steve Carbno, Hope Village’s coordinator, had hoped to have the campus up and running next week, as two more teams come through, but Mother Nature hasn’t allowed that to happen.

Instead, teams from Cross Church from Apple River, Ill., and First Presbyterian Church out of Neenah, Wis., will again be hosted by Hope Village’s partners.

Last year, First Lutheran hosted many teams, especially the youth groups who wanted to serve. In addition, St. Mark’s Lutheran has provided housing for volunteer groups.

Since Hope Village’s new kitchen trailer has yet to arrive, its cook, Jennifer Kelley, will prepare meals for both teams out of the kitchen at St. Mark’s.

The YMCA has again stepped up to assist Hope Village’s rebuild teams by providing shower facilities. Last year, the Y generously allowed team members to use their showers. This year, the plan had been for the Y to work with the AmeriCorps teams that serve through Hope Village but has extended the agreement for the other teams until Hope Village gets its water hooked up.

Hope Village’s tool manager Van Tvedt (arm in sling), with the volunteers who helped move tools to their new location

Hope Village is a collaborative effort that relies on the strengths of its partners. For a list of the cooperating groups, see http://www.hopevillagend.org/partner-organizations/

When the teams start arriving on campus, they’ll have a more streamlined took check-out process in a new location.

This past weekend, tool manager Van Van Tvedt and volunteers transferred the tools from the two Orphan Grain Train trailers into Hope Village’s new tool barn.

The new building is permanent, and when Hope Village finishes its mission, it will remain as the bus garage for Our Savior Lutheran Church, which hosts Hope Village.