05464
Sept. 7, 2005   

Presbyterians sheltering storm victims

Doors of churches, conference centers,
colleges thrown open to Gulf evacuees

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE — Presbyterians are opening churches, conference centers, their homes — even a  defunct college — to families rendered homeless by Hurricane Katrina.

     With New Orleans all but evacuated and parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast flattened, the United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of homelessness.

     The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), its members, churches and related groups are among those responding by feeding, clothing and sheltering some of the estimated half-million people displaced by last week’s catastrophic storm.

     On Sunday, 70 hurricane survivors moved into the gymnasium at former PC(USA)-related Mary Holmes College in West Point, MS. More evacuees were expected to follow this week.

     The next day, Presbyterian-related Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center, near Little Rock, AR, became home to its first Katrina survivors, an extended family of 13 from New Orleans.

     The camp and conference center, which gained recognition seven years ago after a school shooting in Jonesboro, AR, also is being used by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) as a regional relief center.

     “Who would have written some scenario like this?” asked the Rev. David Gill, Ferncliff’s executive director. “It’s hard to get your mind around. What do you start on first? There is so much to do.”

     Gill said volunteers at the center have been busy answering PDA’s new national toll-free hurricane-relief line — (866) 732-6121.

     He said there has been no shortage of Presbyterians and churches offering emergency housing to people displaced by the storm and ensuing floods.

     “The response has been unreal,” Gill said. “Of course, right now we can just take names, phone numbers and messages, and say it’s too early for us to be able to match up needs and people.”

     Camp Alabama in Ruston, LA, is being prepared to house displaced families in cooperation with the American Red Cross, said Gill, who is also president of the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association (PCCCA). He said the Calvin Center, a camp and conference center in Greater Atlanta Presbytery, also is housing storm evacuees.

     The Internet is helping, too.

     PDA is providing registration and criteria on its own Web site, www.pcusa.org/pda, for people offering to house evacuees in their homes or churches. Those who want to organize or join relief teams may also apply through the Web site. An online bulletin board is now operational to help victims find family members still unaccounted for.

     "We are doing a protocol for doing that," said the Rev. John Robinson, national associate for PDA. "We need to ensure a kind of protection against double liability: On the one hand, we need to be sure that those who are offering their homes are offering a safe environment for the folks who might be coming. At the ame time, we need to know who's being referred to them. So we are likely to do that only on referral from a pastor in the affected areas."

     Meanwhile, congregations are opening their doors as shelters to people whose homes are destroyed or damaged.

     Also responding in wake of the catastrophe are PC(USA)-related colleges and universities from the South to the Pacific Northwest, which have begun taking in students from schools impacted by Hurricane Katrina.

     The unprecedented outreach across the church has resulted from quickly formed collaborations between the PC(USA), individual congregations and other church-related institutions with government agencies, charities, social-service agencies and other businesses and individuals.

     On Friday, the city of West Point, MS, and the PC(USA) signed an agreement clearing the way for the denomination’s defunct Mary Holmes College to become a temporary shelter. 

     West Point officials approached the PC(USA) with the proposal in hopes of improving conditions for 280 displaced people from hard-hit Mississippi who have been staying in a Red Cross shelter at a local union hall.

     Seventy evacuees were moved to the school’s gymnasium Sunday. City officials said they hope to have all 280 transferred to the college by week’s end, according to Kerrie Gentry, deputy director for West Point and Clay County Emergency Management.

     Gentry said shelter workers have been shuttling the displaced to a welcome center for showers, and some have been taken to the hospital.

     “We’ve had a lot of volunteer workers who have gotten in there and really cleaned,” Gentry told the Presbyterian News Service. “They got the showers back working and got them cleaned. So we now have shower facilities. We’re not having to bus people to shower locations, once we get everyone moved to Mary Holmes.”

     Volunteers from the West Point community are moving quickly to prepare a dormitory for evacuees, most of whom are from Gulf Port and Bay St. Louis, Gentry said. 

     Last week’s agreement between the church and West Point permits the city to use the now-closed, historically black private college to house storm victims for as long as 60 days. That period could be extended, if necessary.

     The two-year institution officially closed in March after a long struggle with financial problems.

     Officials said the idea of using Mary Holmes to house storm victims was approved by a Pentecostal faith group that has a pending agreement to buy the 198-acre campus in northeastern Mississippi for about $9 million.

     “This is a wonderful cooperation between the government, the church and the purchaser of the Mary Holmes property to utilize it in a way to help those in most need,” said Joey Bailey, the PC(USA)’s executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer.

     Meals are being provided by the West Point School District and local churches and businesses, Gentry said.

     “So far we have had pretty much good, wholesome meals,” she said. “Barbecue, hamburgers, spaghetti, chili, clam chowder. You name it, we’ve had it.”

     Presbyterian churches are opening their doors as well.

     As many as 160 evacuees from New Orleans filed into the gymnasium at First Presbyterian Church in Orange, TX, last week.

     The 350-member congregation in southeast Texas, about 240 miles west of New Orleans, was one of several area churches that immediately transformed themselves into Red Cross shelters. As one facility filled up, another opened.

     Some storm survivors described being plucked from rooftops by helicopter rescue crews before making their way to the makeshift shelter, according to the Rev. Sam Knight, pastor of First church.

     Knight said helping storm survivors is “a very clear part of our action as Presbyterians.”

     He said: “You have a reminder (in the Bible). … Jesus says, ‘Whenever I was naked, you clothed me. When I was in prison you visited me. When I was sick you came to see me. When I was hungry you fed me.’ That’s just part of sharing the gospel message.”

     Most evacuees are sleeping on mats donated by a local dance studio, Knight said, and church volunteers are lining up to help where needed. The Red Cross has joined area churches in Orange to provide meals, along with major food chains such as Domino’s Pizza and Sonic hamburgers. 

     Knight said a local pharmacy is helping address basic medical needs, part of an outpouring of support from people not affiliated with First church.

     “It’s been very exciting,” he said. “The community coming together and our church folks stepping up to the mark and saying, ‘What can I do and I’ll do it.’ It’s been amazing.”

     One member of a small Presbyterian church in Jennings, LA, is housing six survivors from New Orleans while working with local churches to feed and clothe them and do “pretty much anything we can,” said the Rev. Tom Reighney, pastor of 50-member First Presbyterian Church in Jennings, which is yoked with nearby First church in Welsh, LA.

     Jennings, in the western half of Louisiana, was undamaged by Hurricane Katrina.

     A survey is being mailed to each of the 150 Presbyterian-related camp and conference centers across the nation to determine how they could be used in responding to the disaster.

     “We’ve sent out a survey to all of our sites asking for basic information about availability of rooms for short-term or long-term use to host mission relief teams or to house evacuees,” Gill said.

     He said the responses will be compiled for the Red Cross to use in making shelter referrals.

     The Ferncliff facility in Arkansas Presbytery gained recognition for making its facilities available to survivors of a middle-school shooting on March 24, 1998, in Jonesboro, AR. Four children and a teacher had been killed and 10 others wounded.

     Ferncliff volunteer crews have been working to turn cabins into cottages for displaced families who survived Katrina, Gill said.

     “We’ll probably have room for 25 to 30 storm survivors, long-term,” he said. “Depends on the size of the family. We can do short-term, but the need seems to be for long-term, multiple months.”

     Gill said people are helping in every way possible. He said the Rev. Emmett Powers, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lonoke, AR, drove 480 miles each way to Baton Rouge, LA, to personally hand-deliver a laptop computer and printer that PDA had provided to the office of South Louisiana Presbytery. The computer will be used to conduct field assessments of damage.

     Gill said 10-year-old Julia Carter, who worships at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, was selling bracelets she’d made that say “I care.” Her friends were buying them for 50 cents apiece, with all proceeds to be donated to the camp’s relief effort. And a local church made a birthday cake for one of the storm evacuees, he said.

     Meanwhile, Presbyterian-related colleges and universities are admitting hurricane-displaced students. Many have already opened their doors or are extending enrollment, including Whitworth College in Spokane, WA; Schreiner University in Kerrville, TX; Lyon College in Batesville, AR; and the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, OK.

     “They’re making special efforts to try to accommodate those students so that they don’t fall behind in their education at the same time they’re having to deal with so many other situations in their lives and the lives of their families,” said Gary Luhr, executive director of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities (APCU). “This is a good opportunity to display the kind of attitude and care for one another that is one of the characteristics of church-related colleges.”

     Other PC(USA)-related institutions offering enrollment assistance to survivors include Westminster College in Fulton, MO; St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, NC; and Tusculum College in Greenville, TN.

     Presbyterian-related Peace College of Raleigh, NC, announced Friday that it would help students routed from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. The all-women school is opening its classes and residence halls to as many as 30 female students, based on availability for the current academic year.

     “There’s a sense of helplessness about what to do, but there is a substantive and immediate way a college like ours can help — that is to swing open our doors and make all accommodations necessary to restore a sense of normalcy to these lives,” said Peace College President Laura Bingham. “We view it as reaching out to help, if only temporarily. Peace is not large, and we only serve women, but we sure can serve a small number of women well.”