CRWRC Works on Ecumenical Rebuild in post-Katrina New Orleans

Twelve homes in the historic Little Woods area of New Orleans will be rebuilt in coming weeks thanks to 500 volunteers from 10 Christian denominations around the United States, including dozens of volunteers from the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee.

This is the first time so many church organizations have linked together to do work in post-Katrina Lousiana.

“Most of the disaster organizations that are still present along the Gulf Coast are faith-based,” says Arnie Gustafson, CRWRC Disaster Response Services (DRS) area manager who is helping to oversee construction on four homes this week.

“In Little Woods, CRWRC volunteers are working alongside volunteers from the Baptist, Mennonite, and other denominations. We’re working here not just as organizations, but as Christians together.”

CRWRC, a relief and development agency for the Christian Reformed Church, has four other active construction sites in the U.S., including two on the Gulf. Gustafson says that CRWRC volunteers on the Little Woods site are being borrowed from other reconstruction efforts in Kenner and Slidell, Louisiana, where activity is temporarily slowing down for the summer.

Bonnie Vollmering from Church World Service, the lead agency for the ecumenical effort, says that while many Christian denominations and faith groups have helped Gulf Coast survivors in the last four years, this project “is the first national-level collaboration of denominational groups to rebuild together after Hurricane Katrina.”

The project, called “Neighborhood: New Orleans,” is currently targeting qualified home owners in Little Woods who have been squatting in temporary trailers since Hurricane Katrina flooded the small, working class community in 2005. The multi-denominational effort will have its one-neighborhood-at-a-time focus on Little Woods through May 16, 2009.

“Neighborhood: New Orleans” volunteers are working through Church World Service to partner with a local interfaith organization, the Crescent Alliance Recovery Effort, in Little Woods. The groups hope that the initial project will be a spark that brings the long-time lake community together and ignites other groups to continue to help with the Little Woods recovery.

"Our combined goal is to work together in mixed teams to repair the homes of those who can’t afford to rebuild or who haven't been helped by the system,” says Bill Adams, director for CRWRC-DRS. “Most often, our volunteers come away from their experience saying they have been just as blessed by giving their time and energy as those they’re helping.”

Along with CRWRC-DRS, the national denomination groups coordinating Little Woods volunteer teams include: American Baptist Churches USA, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ,) 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.

Church World Service, with offices in Elkhart, Indiana, and New York, established a website for the ecumenical project at http://www.neighborhoodneworleans.net/. Some materials for the Little Woods rebuild were donated by Habitat for Humanity.

For more information about CRWRC, visit http://www.crwrc.org or call 1-800-55-CRWRC. For more information on Disaster Relief Services, visit: www.crwrc.org/drs.