Tables give Katrina victims a place to sit

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — It was the sight from the 17th Avenue Bridge in New Orleans that got to Jim Moose.

He and his wife, Sherry, were in the Crescent City in July to deliver 100 handmade kitchen tables to families who were finally getting into rebuilt homes after losing everything to Hurricane Katrina.

He recalls that although he expected to see devastation, the size of it stunned him.

“It’s 40 miles wide and 15 miles long. Put a house every 50 feet and add 8 feet of water for two weeks,” he said. “What the flood didn’t get, the black mold did.”

The devastation spurred him to come back here and work even harder to try to get enough donations and volunteers to produce the oak tables so that as many families as possible will have a place to sit down and share meals in their new homes.

They recounted that one hurricane victim who just moved into a rebuilt home with every stick of furniture donated cried with happiness when she sat at her own dining room table for the first time in three years.

“It wrecked me,” said Moose, a longtime furniture builder, woodworking teacher and owner of Moosewood Furniture who now works out of his workshop on West Washington Street in Union Township.

He had an idea: make hundreds, or thousands, of kitchen tables that could be collapsed and sent to New Orleans.

For the full story, see Sunday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.