[StBernard] Stafford couple helps manage disaster relief

[Westley Annis]

Stafford couple helps manage disaster relief 
November 21, 2006 12:50 am

By RUSTY DENNEN

NEW ORLEANS. La.--C.F. Rowley Elementary School sits at the end of a lane in
Chalmette, on the city's east side. Flooded almost to the second floor by
Hurricane Katrina, it was closed by the school district soon after the
August 2005 storm.

It'll still be awhile before children's voices and footsteps echo through
its halls, but the school has come back to life in another way. 

It's now home to the Hilltop Rescue & Relief, which is helping the
neighborhood bounce back.

Among those making that possible is Stafford County resident June White,
Hilltop's communications director. White, and her husband, Rick--both
members of the North Stafford Church of Christ--went to Louisiana as
volunteers for the nonprofit group last year and wound up becoming part of
the organization.

June White arrived Friday to work for a couple of days recording the
activities of volunteers from across the country who come to do the dirty
work of "mucking out" flood-damaged homes. She went to work sites, shooting
video and doing interviews to post on Hilltop's Web site.

"We want people to know that this [disaster] is still going on and that we
still need volunteers," she said.

That's how she and her husband first got interested.

"We were watching the news coverage of the flooding, and it just broke my
heart," she said. "Rick and I agreed we had to do something."

Three weeks after Katrina, they went to Slidell, La., where Hilltop
Community Church of Christ in El Segundo, Calif., had set up a small relief
center. The parents of a member of the California church lived in Slidell;
their home and yard became a temporary headquarters.

Hilltop grew exponentially as the push to help storm victims expanded
through much of southern Louisiana.

And the Whites kept coming back--with groups from their church, and two of
their children, Alex, 19, and 17-year-old daughter, Leigh.

"When you go down and see how people are living and the devastation, it just
changes you. We came home from that trip and discussed it and each of us
wanted to go back and work some more," she said.

Rick, 47, a government contractor, was so adept at planning and organizing
that Hilltop asked him to join the board. June, 47, a stay-at-home mom,
accepted her post later. Meanwhile, the organization had grown so much that
it needed more space. The school system agreed to let Hilltop use the
building.

"It worked out great," June said. "We took the bottom floor and put in a
shower room, a kitchen and a laundry. We use the classes upstairs as dorms."

In return, Hilltop helped the school system.

"We made a huge effort to gut houses of teachers and school board members
who were trying to get the schools back up and running," she said.

As the hurricane slipped to back-page news, the numbers of volunteers has
begun to dwindle, White says. Hilltop is adapting its operations
accordingly.

Once an around-the-clock concern, the organization now has 10-day work camps
once a month.

In January, Hilltop will evolve again. That's when the school system wants
the building back to get it ready for classes next fall. The Whites will be
involved in Hilltop's next incarnation to mobilize volunteers and materials
for future disasters around the country.

But for now, the work in New Orleans continues.

To date, over 4,000 volunteers have cycled through Hilltop, some of them
several times. The organization has cleaned out more than 1,700 homes,
getting them ready for the next step: construction.

On Friday, the first of about 50 workers began arriving for Hilltops's work
camp that will last through Nov. 27. Volunteers spend holidays such as
Thanksgiving helping out. 

Teams of about 15 are cleaning out houses in Chalmette and New Orleans East.

Brendan Hendrix, 30, the volunteer coordinator who lives in Baton Rouge,
lines up the jobs, makes sure the crews get fed, and is a liaison with city
officials. Many of the volunteers, he says, are affiliated with Church of
Christ congregations. Some are not churchgoers and others come from many
faiths.

"We've had people from just about every religion there is," he said. "One
week we had Mormons, Buddhists, Church of Christ and Baptists--but it was a
very good week."




To reach RUSTY DENNEN:540/374-5431
Email: rdennen at freelancestar.com 



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Copyright 2006 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.