“We hear about sick people who call for help, and no one comes to pick them up until they’re dead,” Mr. Weah said. His church has begun an effort to buy an ambulance and ship it, at its own expense, to Liberia. But while the money has been forthcoming, there have been problems getting the aid to where it needs to be.

“Many of us have given up hope,” Mr. Weah reluctantly admitted. “The government has done very little to address the situation. Everyone here is worried, everyone is praying. The truth is that we don’t know what to do.”

One thing the community has managed to do is set up a handful of drop-off sites in the neighborhood for donation. It had also planned a concert and fund-raising event for Sunday night at the Christ Assembly Lutheran Church on Hudson Street. The organizers, the Liberian Community Association and the Staten Island Ministerial Alliance, hoped to raise as much as $50,000 for Ebola relief, Mr. Weah said.

There are five major Liberian churches on Staten Island, which is home to a substantial Liberian expatriate community. Some, like Temple of Faith, maintain informal, more familial relations with their homeland. Others, like the First Central Baptist Church on Wright Street, have sent official missions to Liberia in recent years, to build schools and affiliated churches.

“Through our sister church, we have already sent bleach, alcohol, medical swabs and almost $2,000 overseas,” the Rev. Demetrius S. Carolina Sr., the pastor at First Central Baptist, said. “It’s obviously a delicate social and economic situation over there and we, here on Staten Island, are united in trying to come together and lend support in as humanely way as we possibly can.”