Organization assists devastated community

The next step for Jean Lafitte, La., is getting people under roof.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- There are many communities that still need help after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast this fall and many people who are still trying to piece their lives back together.
Eight thousand of those people, who live in and around a town called Jean Lafitte in Louisiana, will have some help from Mission of Love, an aid organization based in Austintown.
The organization's director, Kathleen Price, has been encouraging people to do what they can for Gulf Coast communities. Her organization, which sent volunteers to New Orleans and Louisiana shortly after Katrina devastated the area, can't help everyone, she knows."You are not here to save the world, but to touch the hands within your reach," is Mission of Love's motto.
And so last weekend, she revisited Jean Lafitte at its mayor's invitation.
She supplied quilts, food, handmade pillows and even teddy bears donated by volunteers to townspeople.
Now, after seeing people crammed into small FEMA trailers, or worse, with no trailers at all, she is determined to give them houses.
Blueprints
She wants to gather a team of volunteers and donated supplies and head back to Jean Lafitte, probably by the middle of January, she said.
"We're going to build a team and get supplies," she said. "We're going back to create the community once again."
Price said people of the community, a lot of whom make their living in the shrimp industry, would be happy with small, simple homes.
Patterns that Mission of Love volunteers used to build homes for families on a Lakota Indian reservation in South Dakota would work for Jean Lafitte families, she said.
And before new ones can be built, old ones that are still standing but not fit for habitation have to be torn down.
Price said people are having a hard time getting help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and even from their own personal insurance policies. "You're told you need to go to the expense of tearing down your house."
She said older people in particular and people who had their houses paid off have a hard time realizing that now they have nothing.
People who want to volunteer for the Jean Lafitte mission or would like to donate construction materials can call Price at (330) 793-2388 or (330) 720-0278.
Price said donations will also be accepted for families on the Indian reservation.