Moab restaurateurs, solar panel manufacturer, Mormons and evangelicals among Utahns helping with Houston relief

Utahns are gathering resources to help feed and support displaced Texans after Hurricane Harvey left Houston and its environs submerged and floundering.

A couple from Moab are driving a 30-foot mobile kitchen to Houston to cook for people who cannot access their water-logged kitchens. John and Laurie Clayton have been making food for crews fighting wildfires across Utah for the past six years, according to John Clayton.

In addition to their kitchen-converted trailer, they own Moab restaurant Sunset Grill. John Clayton posted a request for donations on Facebook on Tuesday after he and his wife decided to drive their kitchen to feed Harvey victims. 

“We have a piece of equipment that can cook lots of basic food, what people need in a situation like this,” John Clayton said. ”We‘re geared for that.” 

The couple and their youngest daughter plan to leave Friday and arrive in Houston on Sunday, he said. A hotel in Moab set up rooms for the Claytons along the way. Another hotel donated paper products. 

So far, businesses and residents of Moab and St. George, where the Claytons live, have donated. As of Wednesday afternoon, the couple had raised nearly $10,000 dollars — including a check for $1,000 from one woman — pounds of dry goods and bags of toys, John Clayton said. 

Their goal is to take enough food to last 10 days, but they are considering staying longer if their kitchen is needed. 

“We may end up staying there because we are still a kitchen, and they may need a kitchen and they may bring the food to us,” John Clayton said. ”So we can keep cooking. But our first plan is to be there for 10 days. It looks like we‘re going to be there longer because we’re getting more than we thought we’d get.” 

Meanwhile, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that it had sent nine trucks to Texas, filled with hygiene kits and food from the Bishops’ Central Storehouse and Humanitarian Center in Salt Lake City.

At least three Mormon meetinghouses in the Houston area have been used as temporary evacuation centers, the Utah-based faith reports, and one has acted as an operations center for emergency rescuers. Some LDS missionaries are assisting at shelters and more will be helping as cleanup efforts ramp up.

Standing Together, an evangelical Utah Christian coalition that has made headlines for opposing vitriolic “street preachers” who protest at LDS Church conferences, has partnered with the Grace Woodlands Church in the Houston area to provide aid to flood victims.

Standing Together founder Greg Johnson said the group, with donations collected from evangelical churches throughout the Wasatch Front, planned Friday to send a truckload of items ranging from ready-to-eat food packages, water and clothing to hygiene supplies, blankets and cleaning supplies.

Goal Zero, a Bluffdale-based manufacturer of solar-powered products, sent $1 million worth of large, portable solar-panel power stations and lighting equipment. The team of seven left for Texas on Wednesday morning.

The equipment will be “deployed in a lot of the community centers and places where people are being housed to provide power for lighting, for refrigerators and for medical devices,” said Goal Zero spokeswoman Lisa Janssen.

The company is sending personal power kits and emergency flashlights that can charge phones. The kits contain small solar panels and small battery packs that are used to recharge cellphones, she said. 

“We can distribute those individually to different people and then also support those community centers with those bigger power items to keep them going,” Janssen said.