Immediately following the Hurricane Katrina, two PDA Team members spent five days in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi doing initial damage assessments and accompanying a pastor and elders into the affected area as far west as the outskirts of Diamondhead, Mississippi.
In the following week PDA Team members deployed to South Alabama Presbytery in Mobile and used that presbytery office as a base of operations to travel to areas of Mississippi affected by the storms. During this period consultations were held with the presbytery stated clerk, the moderator of the presbytery, the vice-moderator of the presbytery and elders, pastors and lay persons active in the response to the storm. These consultations have continued since the appointment of the administrative commission and the hiring of an interim executive presbyter.
Over the next several weeks, seven PDA Team members logged 132 volunteer days in support of the Presbytery of Mississippi and the affected communities at a cost of $24,486. A PDA Volunteer continues to provide interface for Mississippi Presbytery with PDA and the variety of response agencies in the area, and to provide advice and counsel on the development of the presbytery’s recovery effort.
In addition, one former PC(USA) staff member and one current contract staff person spent 39 days directing the construction and initial volunteer staffing of three Volunteer Villages, the first of which opened within 17 days of the hurricane. By the end of the month of November, these Volunteer Villages will have provided 9,448 volunteer days to the churches and communities of Mississippi Presbytery. The initial cost of setting up these villages has been $273,075. With a projected lifespan of two years, this is less than $15 per volunteer per week.
These Volunteer Villages have provided volunteers to work both with congregations and with the community on recovery. They have cleared debris, begun the processes necessary to do housing repair and rehabilitation, such as tearing out wall board and wire brushing areas of potential mold infestation, and begun preliminary repairs on church facilities to make them usable by the congregation and the community.
In Gautier the Volunteer Village has been on the grounds of the Gautier Presbyterian Church. In D’Iberville the Volunteer Village is on the grounds of a city baseball diamond. In this city, these volunteers have been essential to the disaster response and recovery efforts of that small town. In Gulfport, PDA has a Volunteer Village on the grounds of the Orange Grove Presbyterian Church. The volunteers from this Village have primarily been engaged in clearing debris and initial housing assessments for two large sections of Biloxi under the coordinated leadership of Oxfam. Also in Gulfport, PDA has been scheduling work teams into Westminster Presbyterian Church, which has taken the lead in recovery efforts in the area of Gulfport, and the Long Beach Presbyterian Church.
It is anticipated that PDA will construct an additional Volunteer Village in Mississippi before the end of the year. In addition, PDA will be hiring a full time Volunteer Village Coordinator to oversee the operation of the Volunteer Villages.
The Presbytery of Mississippi has received direct support of $200,000 to be used at the discretion of the presbytery and its Hurricane Katrina Recovery Commission. Also provided has been $66,000 to cover the cost of setting up the Recovery Commission and hiring a staff person to lead the effort. $120,000 has been provided to the churches of Mississippi Presbytery for church facility reconstruction. PDA has also provided $100,000 to the Synod of Living Waters to provide support for the salaries and church staff from the Presbytery of Mississippi. PDA is acting now to provide the necessary office equipment to set up the Presbytery of Mississippi Recovery Office in Gulfport.
PDA has created a National Call Center at Ferncliff Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, to coordinate and schedule work team efforts in Mississippi — at a cost in excess of $40,000. While designed to schedule work teams for the whole area affected by the storm, to the present the PDA National Call Center has been scheduling groups exclusively into Mississippi.
PDA has expended over $923,000 on Mississippi Presbytery in response to a series of storms that affected five presbyteries in three synods and affected more than 75 churches and thousands of communities — from east Texas to the Atlantic coast of Florida.
It is anticipated that PDA will disburse another $250,000 to the presbytery in support of the long-term recovery structure of the presbytery. Without a doubt , the total cost of this response in Mississippi Presbytery will exceed $1 million before the end of the year.
In Louisiana, PDA has supported the work of First Presbyterian Church in Thibodaux as they have been working with families in a 100-mile radius that includes seven Louisiana parishes. Thibodaux is located about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans. We have also provided assistance to the Presbytery of South Louisiana, including $400,000 for pastor salary support and $100,000 to aid in the remediation and restoration of 10 damaged churches.
To date, approximately $13,750,679 has been received for hurricane relief. This amount includes gifts to all three designated accounts:
- DR000169 - The needs of disaster survivors
- DR000161 - Pastoral care for Presbyterian clergy and salary support
- DR000163 - Church repair and/or rebuilding
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