BRENTWOOD — About 7,000 Tennessee Baptist volunteers, some serving many times, have built 60 homes for victims of Hurricane Katrina in about 31 months, reported David Acres, state director of Disaster Relief/Baptist Builders for the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
The Tennesseans were participating in the Gulf Coast Rebuild Project of the TBC. The work was done mainly in Pass Christian, Miss., in cooperation with the Gulf Coast Baptist Association.
Project volunteers also have repaired homes. They have given over 35,000 work days adding at least $3 million to the economy of the area, added Acres. The project has closed.
Volunteers have seen about a dozen people make professions of faith and a church begin. The development of the church was an outgrowth of the rebuild project taken on by several TBC churches, explained Acres.
Finally, the last person to receive a home has been able to move from the two tents she lived in for two years. Her home was destroyed by Katrina.
The woman’s partially-built home also was damaged in September by Hurricane Gustav. But that was repaired by Tennessee Baptists. Volunteers from Duck River Baptist Association, Tullahoma, completed her home last week, reported Acres.
She is a “very sweet lady” who is “hard-working,” he described.
The Gulf Coast Rebuild Project was begun in April 2006 by the TBC and five Baptist associations — Nashville, Chilhowee in Maryville, Bradley County in Cleveland, Knoxville, and Mid-South in Memphis. The project was expanded in 2007 to target all Tennessee Baptists because of the vastness of the need.
To encourage volunteers to participate, the TBC completed an unfinished building of Robinson Road Baptist Church, Gulfport, Miss. The facility served to house and feed volunteers without expense to them.
Serving as on-site coordinators were Phil and Aline Van Dixon of Ramer Baptist Church, Ramer, and Chris and Carrie Loudenbeck of Faith Baptist Church, Bartlett. Replacing them were Jim and Bonnie Sellers of Belle Aire Baptist Church, Murfreesboro, who served for about two years. All three couples served as volunteers sacrificially and were essential to the success of the ministry, said Acres. The Sellers each endured health problems during their service.
These on-site coordinators not only hosted the Tennessee teams but they developed work assignments. Homeowners who were helped were identified through a local ministry which screened homeowners.
Volunteers had to build homes on stilts about eight feet off the ground. Codes and other requirements distinct to the area had to be followed. Acres said everyone responded well to the situation.
“We accomplished what we hoped and then some,” said Acres.
At a closing ceremony Oct. 18 homeowners who were helped and volunteers gathered. Acres was presented a proclamation by the mayor and the board of alderman of Pass Christian naming the day Tennessee Baptist Volunteer Day in the city of Pass Christian.
