Rebuilding Community Bill Collins Harold Rainwater is a man who knows his community. Well he should; he's lived here in Wilmore, Ky., for 55 years and been mayor for almost 30 of them. His father--a man Harold says was his mentor and best friend--is buried here. His grandchildren go to school here. This is where he met the young lady who became his bride in 1964, a union still going strong 41 years later. The old campground off Main Street is where he met Christ, he says, and the cemetery by the railroad tracks is where he got his first job mowing grass. He saw segregation end in his family's restaurant downtown and watched as his town birthed great missionaries and presidential hopefuls--as well as a few ordinary, everyday people with profound words for a young man. He'll never forget, he says, the elderly African-American man who bequeathed to him words of wisdom when he noted that he gets dressed up to accompany his wife to the grocery store because "you've got to court her to get her, and court her to keep her, son." So when I asked Harold if his community would rebuild should a tragedy like a hurricane destroy so many of the places in his memories, he didn't pause. "Yes," he said, quickly and quietly. "I don't know where else I would go to find what I have." This identification with a place and its people and memories--is this what compels so many Gulf Coast residents to struggle through the heartbreak of rebuilding their communities? Is this why they don't simply take their FEMA money and start fresh somewhere else, somewhere without inches of stinking slime coating their possessions, without memories of fear and hunger? The ownership component of Habitat's model will play a key role in that rebuilding. It is important for survival to have a roof over one's head. If a sense of community is going to be reborn and restored, it is critical to feel the sense of ownership of that roof that the Habitat model provides. "While it has been said that Americans are a generous people that can and do respond to human needs far and wide, it seems to me that local connections and neighborhood actions often become more permanent and make the biggest difference in people's lives," says Bill Collins, HFHI's senior vice president for Recovery and Collaborative Alliances. "This is Habitat's 'sweet spot' and where it traditionally operates the best--bringing together all walks of life to help those who need it the most and are willing to invest in their own futures." As time goes on, Gulf Coast residents may find the challenges of rebuilding are not limited to clearing debris and re-erecting utility poles. Hard as they are, they may be the easy part. Places can be rebuilt. People are just as necessary but more difficult to rebuild. Communities need both. Harold Rainwater says it more simply: "It would be almost like the military refusing to leave its wounded behind. To abandon the town would sort of dishonor the sacrifices previous generations made to live here. How could you not rebuild?" --Habitat World assistant editor Rebekah Daniel works from her home in Wilmore, Ky.