A God's Pit Crew forklift operator moves load of donated goods.

Non-profit crisis response team God's Pit Crew of Danville has obtained a 2009 Nissan CF50 forklift in part through a USD20,000 grant from charitable organisations and the generosity of the CFE Equipment Corp dealership.

"We took possession on January 4, once the grant was approved," says Randy Johnson, founder and director of God's Pit Crew.

"We had a couple of pretty old forklifts-a Clark and a Mitsubishi-that came to us as contributions," he notes. "We experienced a tremendous number of breakdowns and spent money to keep them in operation."

More than 300 volunteers in God's Pit Crew pursue disaster relief in natural occurrences such as floods, tornados and hurricanes. The faith-based group was formed in 1999, has responded to 38 major disasters in 18 states and has delivered more than 5 million pounds (2.25 million kg) of supplies to devastated areas. Contributions of food, water, paper products and building materials come from major corporations and others.

"We are in need of one or two more lifts," Johnson says.

The Community Foundation of the Dan River Region announced the God's Pit Crew grant among those totaling USD878,800 and awarded to 56 non-profit community agencies ON 12 January. The Danville Regional Foundation Fund provided USD500,000 of the money for the community awards including the grant to God's Pit Crew.

The organisation applied for a grant of USD21,000 but was approved for USD20,000. The CFE branch in Roanoke, Virginia agreed to supply the forklift for the grant award although the Nissan LP Platinum series model with lifting capacity of 5,000 pounds (2,250 kg) has a value exceeding USD22,000.

In addition to Nissan, CFE in certain markets sells new forklifts from the Crown, Landoll/Bendi, Manitou, Taylor-Dunn, Jungheinrich and Hoist Lift lines. CFE is based in Norfolk, Virginia and, in addition to Roanoke, has other branches in Richmond and Manassas, Virginia and Jessup, Maryland.