wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Presbyterian volunteers flock to Gulf Coast to do the

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Note #9008 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05596
Nov. 4, 2005

Elbow-grease Presbyterians

Volunteers from around the U.S. flock to Gulf Coast to do the dirty work

by Evan Silverstein

LONG BEACH, MS - For Cathryn Rolfe, the hammer-and-nails chorus at Long Beach
Presbyterian Church is the sweet sound of recovery.

	She donned yellow gloves and surgical mask, picked up a scrub brush
and went to work.

	Rolfe, a member of First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN, was
one of an army of Presbyterian volunteers contributing to relief efforts all
along the hurricane-ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast.

	"The main thing that you've got to say: You cannot believe the
devastation down here," said Rolfe, a lawyer. "And what people need to do is
send money and come help."

	In nearby Gulfport, and in other towns including Biloxi, Pass
Christian and Pascagoula, Presbyterians have grabbed their chain saws and
pitched in - clearing debris, shoveling mud, tearing out drywall.

	Presbyterians have arrived in the hurricane zone in cars, buses and
trucks, often towing campers or trailers stocked with food, water and
clothing for the victims. They are fixing up roofs, ripping out rotten,
hurricane-soaked floors, tearing out sheetrock and ministering to survivors
who have lost their homes and everything they contained. They are repairing
damaged churches, preparing meals, handing out supplies. 

	"We're doing God's work down here," said Dan Grimes, a Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance Team (PDAT) member deployed in Gulfport. "From a
community standpoint, they appreciate us. They speak to us on the street:
'Thank you.'"

	While some volunteers can work in the region for just a few days,
others stay for weeks. New volunteers arrive daily. 

The cleanup phase will end soon, and the rebuilding will begin.

	"How soon, I don't know," Grimes said, considering the scale of the
disaster. "It will vary with each community. In one area of Biloxi, they've
already cleaned out a grid and started the process of rebuilding."

	Grimes, a 78-year-old self-proclaimed "disaster junkie" and former
U.S. Marine from Newport News, VA, has been a PDAT member since the group was
organized in 1996. The cadre is made up of volunteers with experience and
training in disaster preparedness and response.

	Grimes, who also responds to disasters for Church World Service,
helped hire staff for three "tent villages" established by Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance along the Mississippi coast.

	Each camp has about 30 dome-shaped tents that serve as housing for
rotating work teams from across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); the first,
Gautier, MS, was dedicated on Sept. 13. (video links here)

	"The amount of damage that was done is just horrific," said Brian
Jensen, a 21-year-old Presbyterian college student from San Clemente, CA, who
stayed at the Gautier camp. "I wanted to come down and help out with anything
I could do. Just to make one person smile a day would make me happy and
satisfied."

	Another PDA tent camp is in hard-hit D'iberville, MS, just north of
Biloxi. The other is in Gulfport, west of Biloxi. More such camps are planned
for the Gulf Coast as part of the PC(USA)'s biggest-ever domestic-relief
response.

	Presbyterians of all callings - from advertising executives to
country songwriters to speech pathologists - are answering the call. There is
still plenty of work for them all.

	Rolfe said assistance of any kind is welcomed in hard-hit Long Beach,
a town of about 17,000 people. In fact, she said, help is needed just about
everywhere in the devastated region.  

	"We don't care where you're from, and we don't care what your skill
set is," she said. "If you can use a broom, you can clean."

	Rolfe's congregation in Nashville started sending work teams just
after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. Each group serves a
four-day stint wherever it is most needed.

	On one recent day, Rolfe scrubbed a kitchen at the Long Beach church
while volunteers from Chestnut Level Presbyterian Church in Quarryville, PA,
pried tiles from a classroom floor ruined by flood water and consumed by
mold.  

	"It's an experience I'll never forget, because the need is so great,"
said David Miller, a 67-year-old retired carpenter from the Pennsylvania
church. "You just can't imagine it unless you come here. ... Pictures don't
really do it justice."

	Outside, volunteers from another Nashville congregation, Westminster
Presbyterian Church, were building makeshift showers for the volunteers.

	Piles of debris were stacked in front and alongside the Long Beach
church, but its main building weathered the category-4 hurricane surprisingly
well. Another building was blown off its foundation and set down 20 yards
away.

	With its flock scattered across the country, it isn't clear when or
whether the Long Beach church will again host a congregation.

	So the plan, at least for now, is to use it as a base camp for
volunteers.

	"I know our mission trips overseas are important," Rolfe said, "but
these are our neighbors, and you need to get off your duff and forgo your own
comfort zone and get down here, because you cannot imagine the mental and
emotional devastation."

	More than a dozen PC(USA) churches were damaged or destroyed by
Katrina. Ruined shells of homes, apartment complexes and businesses line
once-pristine beaches. 

	There are crumbled houses pushed off their foundations and cars and
boats deposited on lawns. Uprooted trees, some reduced to splinters, lie over
debris fields that once were bustling neighborhoods. The ground is strewn
with personal items such as coffee mugs, trophies, clothing, books and
pictures.

	Lindsey Carr, another volunteer from Nashville's First church, wore a
double-charcoal filter mask as she picked up ruined hymnals, toys and other
refuse at the Long Beach church and tossed it into a wheelbarrow. She said
"willing hands and hearts" are needed in the hurricane zone.

	"We just need help," said Carr, a church staff member. "There are
tons of supplies, but often supplies just sit - because there is no one to do
anything with them. The people here, I would imagine, are so close to being
burnt out. We just need lots of hands, lots of people."

	Helping with the cleanup should be a priority for everyone, said
Jamie Ferrugia, a country music songwriter who belongs to Westminster
Presbyterian Church in Nashville. He came to Long Beach with a fellow
parishioner who's an engineer and another Nashville man who's an advertising
and marketing executive - both experienced homebuilders with Habitat for
Humanity.

	"I think it's an important part of our faith commitment," Ferrugia
said while pounding nails into the wooden base of the temporary showers. "I
think as human beings we're called to do that. Not just as Presbyterians, but
certainly as Christian people."

	Presbyterians say they hope to make a difference in the lives of the
survivors.

	That's what a dozen members of First Presbyterian Church in
Greenville, NC, had in mind as they worked at a city-operated feeding program
at a D'iberville recreation center. Hurricane Katrina left thousands homeless
there and in neighboring St. Martin.

	"We not only wanted to come down here and work, we wanted to come
down here and bring supplies," said David Chappell, a volunteer from the
Greenville church. "They said they needed bath towels, so we bought a
thousand bath towels and a thousand washcloths."

	Congregation members paid for the supplies, including 100 sets of
dishes.

	Chappell said they bought a dozen pallets of household products and
food from Sam's Club, including four or five pallets of bleach; one of
laundry detergent; 1,400 cans of green beans; 1,400 cans of corn; and 1,000
cans each of peaches, pineapple, chicken, and tuna. 

	"We've enjoyed ourselves and met a lot of great people," he said.
"We're feeding a lot of volunteers, but ... also feeding folks who lost their
homes. It's been very rewarding."

	Lunch and dinner were provided by the Red Cross, but breakfast was
compliments of First church in Greenville: Fresh-baked biscuits, shrimp,
sausage, grits, bacon and scrambled eggs.

	The Greenville group used a corner of a storeroom to create the only
shower in town with hot water. It was named "The Neely Shower Facility" in
honor of First church's pastor, the Rev. Bill Neely, a PDAT member.

	At a distribution center in D'iberville, Presbyterian Faye Atchison
was handing out baby formula, diapers, canned goods, toilet paper, blankets
and clothes.

	"This has just been special, working here," said Atchison, a member
of Mechanicsburg (PA) Presbyterian Church. "They keep saying 'Thank you, God
bless you.' It's really been wonderful."

	Presbyterian Lila Miller also was working at the POD - Point of
Distribution - center.

	The two women were among 26 Presbyterians and other Christians from
Carlisle Presbytery who took a bus to the area, stopping along the way to
sleep at a Presbyterian church in Tennessee. 

	During their six-day stay in Mississippi, they said, they witnessed
the enduring hope of many victims, some of whom have been living in tents
since the storm and have no prospect of returning to their homes anytime
soon. 

	Miller, who worships at Camp Hill (PA) Presbyterian Church, said one
woman told her that she had lost everything but was thankful that she and her
mother were alive. 

	"She told me that's what's important," Miller said. "She said, 'I'll
make it.' They're survivors. I think a lot of the people who are coming
through here are living in a surreal world, and it is almost impossible for
their minds to take in the devastation they have suffered."

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