[StBernard] Arabi gym bouncing back

[Westley Annis]

Arabi gym bouncing back
Nebraska students join rebuild effort 
Monday, March 26, 2007
By Karen Turni Bazile
St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau 

Wielding a nail gun, college student Nicole Rotert plank by plank rebuilt
the floor of the locker room at the Edward A. Kattengell Center in Arabi one
day last week. 

 
Rotert, a biology major from Dana College in Nebraska, arrived with
construction experience and a desire to help Hurricane Katrina victims
during her spring break and signed on with Operation Blessing International,
the humanitarian arm of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. 

Rotert's sweat-and-tears efforts are part of a $300,000 facelift and
reconstruction project at the Kattengell Center expected to be finished by
mid-May. The project aims to transform the circa-1932 gym and its adjoining
field, which had been untouched since Katrina flooded the area under more
than 5 feet of water. 

"I just wanted to help, and I wanted to make a difference," said Rotert,
whose college sent about 35 volunteers. "Since we're from Nebraska, it
didn't hit me that so many people lost so much. It's just amazing how they
have come back to build all new lives." 

Operation Blessing donated $200,000 to repair the wooden gym. And Jody
Herrington, the group's director for U.S. Disaster Relief, said an
additional $100,000 in supplies and in-kind donations were raised in the
past three weeks, including free labor to replace the roof. 

The parish owns the facility, but, once rebuilt, it will be maintained and
operated by the City of Hope, the nonprofit humanitarian arm of Adullam
Christian Fellowship, a Chalmette nondenominational church, under a lease
with the St. Bernard Parish Council. 

Shortly after the hurricane, Adullam's on-the-ground efforts fed and clothed
2,000 local victims daily. City of Hope still provides commodities and meals
to about 500 people three days a week. 

Randy Millet, pastor of Adullam and president of City of Hope, told the
council the gym will house a recreational boxing program, as well as
informal volleyball and basketball games that will be open to the public.
The adjacent field has been leveled and reseeded so it can support an adult
soccer field and two youth soccer fields. Adjacent to the field will be a
half-mile walking path from the park to the Mississippi River. 

"Our children need a place to play," Millet said. "Operation Blessing has
been a bright light in a community that was desperately needed." 

Herrington said Operation Blessing's volunteers have worked 205,000 hours in
Louisiana, with a large portion of that in St. Bernard Parish. Besides
gutting and rebuilding houses, volunteers repaired Rebel Park, a youth
recreational field destroyed by the storm, so it could be used for the
Chalmette High School girls' softball games. 

"This year, we were looking for another community-level project, but we
wanted to find a local group who could promise to operate and maintain the
facility for at least 10 years until the parish could get on its feet to
possibly operate it," Herrington said. 

Millet said he created City of Hope, which will operate the gym, because he
saw the "need that the children have in this area for recreation and for fun
to keep from their needs being lost in the midst of this disaster." 

Bill Horan, president of Operation Blessing, said such projects are just as
important as helping people get back into their houses. 

"Katrina is literally still killing people today," Horan said. 

His group provides a free medical facility in eastern New Orleans to help
the uninsured, as well as other efforts, like the rebuilding of a community
park and gym, to try and address Katrina's emotional toll. 

Community Park, as the facility also is known, was used only for a
recreational boxing program before the storm, although the gym with its
original wooden floors has a storied history, said Joe Boyle, Operation
Blessing's foreman for the project. 

It was first built for the old Maumus High School, but it fell into private
hands for a period and was a roller-skating rink before it was used for
boxing, volleyball and basketball for generations of children. 

Millet said he wants to help minister beyond the walls of his young church,
which he founded in his house in 1996. Before Katrina, his congregation of
300 met in an old grocery store on St. Bernard Highway in Arabi. 

Anyone who wants to help can stop by the park during daytime hours. Those
who need help can go by the Operation Blessing office on West St. Bernard
Highway, next to Adullam's facility. 

"We say St. Bernard is like Mayberry," Herrington said. "Everybody knows
everybody, and they are all willing to put their lives on the line for each
other. It has been a joy for us to be here. We feel like part of the family
in St. Bernard." 

. . . . . . . 

Karen Turni Bazile can be reached at kturni at timespicayune.com or (504)
826-3321.