10 Years On, Faith Groups Are Still Helping Katrina Survivors Rebuild

Charlene Aaron : Aug 28, 2015
CBN News

"We came down, we fed people, it was wonderful, but there's still more that has to be done. That's why this week we're back feeding teams that are rebuilding homes."

[CBN News] Ten years ago Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast. The storm caused the collapse of levees around New Orleans, resulting in 1,800 deaths, damage to 500,000 homes, and displacement of more than a million people. (Screengrab via CBN News)

While most of the spotlight focused on New Orleans, Mississippi was also hit hard. Nonprofit groups have been helping to rebuild lives and homes in and around Biloxi ever since.

Dung Nguyen, a fisherman for 20 years, was stranded on his boat for nearly a week when Hurricane Katrina struck.

"I wouldn't dare to think about what's going to happen the next day, or two or three days from now or what the future is going to be—it was just a matter of survival at the time," Nguyen told CBN News.

When the storm ended, his boat and source of income had been wiped out.

"It was extremely difficult to keep a level head about not knowing what's going to happen, especially (because) I have a family to take care of," he recalled. "I can't even describe the feeling—the helplessness, the hopelessness."

Katrina also damaged 86-year-old Charles "Ronnie" Fountain's boyhood home.

Fountain said he was displaced five times until FEMA gave him a trailer to live in for a year before moving back into his house.

Today, The Fuller Center disaster rebuilders have been helping people like Fountain start over. Since Katrina, the group has helped rebuild some 100 homes.

About 70 volunteers are in Biloxi this week helping The Fuller Center as it marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

"I just looked around east Biloxi and said this place is a mess," volunteer Bart Tucker told CBN News. "We've got to get started cleaning it up."

That's exactly what Tucker, who joined with The Fuller Center disaster rebuilders, did.

"On Sunday, the first Sunday after we were here, the church asked us to go to a working class neighborhood of east Biloxi to muck out a house," Tucker explained.

"Well, once we saw that neighborhood we said there is more need here than we will ever fulfill in the three weeks that we're going to be here. We're just going to stay and work in this house, in this neighborhood, work from house to house."

Other faith-based partners have also been helping residents in the region. (Screengrab via CBN News)

Gary LeBlanc is president and founder of Mercy Chefs. As a native of Louisiana, LeBlanc was personally affected by the storm.

"I spent 20 years in the business in New Orleans and vacationed on the Gulf Coast. I mean there were people down here that I knew and loved that we couldn't get in touch with," LeBlanc told CBN News.

"I remember nights sleeping in a rental car, in a baseball stadium, and waking up at two in the morning and hearing people crying in the homes around us," he explained. "They weren't hurt. They weren't afraid, but they were crying out of hopelessness. Something had to be done. I personally had to do something."

That something birthed Mercy Chefs.

In the 10 years since the storm, Mercy Chefs has fed more than a million people in disasters across the globe.

Yet helping Katrina survivors remains close to LeBlanc's heart because 10 years after the storm, many of them still have no place to call home.

"We came down, we fed people, it was wonderful, but there's still more that has to be done," he said "That's why this week we're back feeding teams that are rebuilding homes."

Meanwhile, Fountain said the support from faith organizations like Fuller and Mercy Chefs are doing more than just rebuilding structures. They're helping to restore hope and faith.

"I think it brought me a lot closer to my religion," Fountain said.

The Fuller Center hopes to soon complete a new home for Nguyen and his family.

"Now I know I have a home that we can live in for a long time," Nguyen said.