wfn.org | New national volunteer group to rebuild homes in neglected New Orleans lakefront community

["Lesley Crosson" <lcrosson@churchworldservice.org>]

>Church World Service
>475 Riverside Drive New York, New York 10115

New national volunteer group to rebuild homes in neglected New Orleans
lakefront community

***EDITORS, PRODUCERS: A media day is planned for May 13 at conclusion
of the final home in this project. Executive Director of Church World
Service and other notables will attend. Final media alert will be issued
prior to May 13.

NEW ORLEANS, March 31, 2009--One of the still-neglected tragedies of
Hurricane Katrina, the historic lakefront community of Little Woods in
New Orleans' Ninth Ward, will get a rebuilding boost starting in April,
thanks to a first-of-its-kind network of national volunteers spearheaded
by humanitarian agency Church World Service.

With a one-neighborhood-at-a-time focus, the ”Neighborhood: New
Orleans” project will repair or rebuild an initial 12 homes on
property owned by current or displaced Little Woods residents during a
four-week effort beginning Sunday, April 19, and ending Saturday, May
16.

More than 500 volunteers representing ten different Christian
denominations from across the United States have signed up so far to
help rebuild the one-time bustling "fishing camp" lakefront community.

"Many Christian denominations and other faith groups have individually
helped survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita since 2005," said Bonnie
Vollmering, Church World Service Associate Director for Domestic
Emergency Response. “This project is truly an effort with
denominational groups collaboratingthe first such post-Katrina
ecumenical rebuild effort on a national level.”

Global agency CWS will work in partnership with the local New Orleans
long-term recovery organization, the Crescent Alliance Recovery Effort
(CARE), and with volunteer teams coordinated by Church World Service
member denominations and partners who are providing the labor.

Virtually decimated by Katrina and, before it, significantly damaged by
Hurricane George in 1998, Little Woods faces the east bank of Lake
Ponchartrain. The formerly vibrant, working class community, and its
lakefront lined with fishing camps, restaurants and music clubs, had
been nominated by the New Orleans Landmarks Commission in 1999 as an
historic landmark.*

But nearly four years after Katrina, lot after lot still lies untouched
and unrecovered.

In New Orleans, Crescent Alliance Recovery Effort director Ellenor
Simmons points out that since Katrina, most of the rebuilding attention
by outside sources has focused on the city's Lower 9th Ward.

“Like the Lower 9th Ward, Little Woods flooded heavily in Katrina  but
it wasn’t an area where any organization decided to concentrate  its
rebuilding efforts,” Simmons said.

The Crescent Alliance Recovery Effort, Church World Service and
participating national faith groups are hoping this initial rebuild
project will be the spark that brings the long-time lake community back
together, and that ignites other groups to help continue with Little
Woods' recovery.

Church World Service, which provides emergency and recovery assistance
following disasters in the U.S. and internationally, domestically
specializes in helping faith-based and other community groups establish
long-term recovery organizations that serve disaster survivors whose
needs aren't met through other means.

Church World Service is supported by public donations and grants and by
some 35 U.S. Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox denominations, which
contributes to the rebuilding project’s unique ecumenical drive.

"No matter their denominational background, the Little Woods volunteers
will be working together, mixed in weekly teams, to help restore and
rebuild homes for some of the people of Little Woods who couldn't afford
to rebuild themselves and who haven't been helped by the system,"
Vollmering said.

Vollmering noted that the casework has already been completed for the
houses targeted for the project.

"We're encouraging othe

r groups not to forget but instead to reinvest
funding, materials, volunteer time and consciousness to help now in
rebuilding the forgotten communities of New Orleans, one neighborhood at
a time,” Vollmering said.

Church World Service has established a specific website for the
project, http://www.neighborhoodneworleans.net/.

Some materials for the rebuild effort have been donated by Habitat for
Humanity.
National denomination groups coordinating the Little Woods volunteer
teams include: American Baptist Churches USA, the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ), Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, Church
of the Brethren Disaster Ministries, Lutheran Disaster Response,
Mennonite Disaster Service, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reformed
Church in America Global Mission, the United Church of Christ, and
United Methodist Committee on Relief.

Source: Times-Picayune, New Orleans, La., Nov 21, 1999. Author: Lynne
Jensen, Staff writer, Page B1:3.

How to help

Contributions to support Church World Service emergency response and
recovery efforts may be made online, by phone (800.297.1516), or sent to
Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515.

Media Contacts: Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676 lcrosson@churchworldservice.org Jan Dragin, 24/7, 781-925-1526 jdragin@gis.net