Outreach - Katrina Rebuild Mission

A group from Pohick will be going back down to New Orleans in September to continue work with the effort as it transitions from gutting to rebuilding. The January participants were all touched by Ms. Cora. Ms. Cora was so grateful for the work the Pohick group did gutting her house, she wanted to pay the group. She was reassured that it was not necessary or possible, but if she wanted to make a donation to the gutting and rebuilding fund that would certainly be appreciated. And, she did. Friday of that week, she donated a check in the amount of $1,000 to the rebuilding fund - this was probably every penny she had available to put toward her house.

A letter from the volunteer coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana (EDOLA), Katie Mears, was received and is appropriate to share. It is an excellent example of how this work positively impacts lives.

“I wanted to let you and your group know that we’re starting to rebuild one of the houses you all gutted on your trip here in January. I bet you’ll remember Ms. Cora: she’s an older black lady who, before the storm, lived with her son in a little house in Pontchartrain Park. She delivered mail to the prisoners at the county jail. When you went to work there, she had already had someone remove most of the contents of her house; you all worked on the trim and walls. She’s had a rough time over the past year, but is one of the most cheerful people I’ve ever met. Her son had mental health problems before the storm so didn’t evacuate - he got picked up by the search and rescue teams after 11 days in the water and is still living in a residential facility in Boston. Ms. Cora hasn’t seen him in nearly two years. She’s been staying in a FEMA trailer in her front yard since she got back to New Orleans from Baton Rouge this January.

As the need for gutting winds down, we’re transitioning into rebuilding, so I get to call folks back who we’ve gutted for over the past year and ask if we can help them put their houses back together. When I first called Ms. Cora in March, I had to convince her to let us help - she doesn’t believe in borrowing money or receiving charity (she donated her car to a homeless shelter when she could no longer afford to insure it; she gives even though she doesn’t have much herself). The problem is that her son can’t come home from Boston until the house is finished, and she misses him terribly. She told me she’d been praying for her Road Home money (the federal grant to help people rebuild) to come through so she can rebuild, but we decided that you never can tell what form God’s help will take. The Road Home money still isn’t here yet, but we can get started in the meantime, and she can pay us back later.

So now we get to work. We’ve helped her find and hire reputable electricians, plumbers and mold remediators. We’ve had volunteers insulate, sheetrock, mud and paint. We’ll have crews in next week to lay the floors and install the trim and cabinets. We should be done in a couple weeks, adding to the seven houses we’ve finished so far and another four that are almost done.

We have grant money from Episcopal Relief and Development to cover the $6000 that it takes to finish a house once the subcontracting work - things that we can’t use volunteers for like the electrical, plumbing, and mold remediation - is done. When I wrote the grant last fall, it seemed reasonable to expect the families to be able to pay for the subcontracting work themselves. But because Ms. Cora (and most everybody else) doesn’t have her Road Home money yet, she doesn’t have much of anything to contribute right now. That means that, before we can send our volunteers in, we had to front the money for the subcontractors using church funds, and Ms. Cora will pay us back when her Road Home money arrives.

I’m writing for two reasons: just to let you know how things are progressing, but also to ask for help. I know Ms. Cora and all the other families we’re working with will pay us back -they have too much invested in their identities as homeowners to want a free charity house - but they might not be able to do it for months. We’re going to need more money to get us through the summer.

The volunteer side is ramping up again - I have 30 summer interns arriving this weekend and we’ll have at least two hundred volunteers a week. We won’t be limited by how much work we can do, but we might be limited by how much work we can pay for. Your church has been a big supporter of ours, and I hope you all can continue to support our efforts.”