Sarah Laponsie of North Carolina's Our Towns of Lake Norman Habitat for Humanity pitches in at a Mobile County build site.

Gulf Coast Rising (continued)

Funding the Effort
Funds for rebuilding are, of course, an issue. Habitat for Humanity International has received donations and pledges of $125 million for Operation Home Delivery, with approximately 1,000 new houses on target for completion by mid-summer 2007.

"Habitat is committed to building as long as there are resources available to do so," says Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International. "As we remain immensely grateful for the generosity so compassionately demonstrated by individuals and organizations worldwide, we also know that our work along the Gulf Coast has just begun. And that calls for new partnerships with new friends seeking new ways to rebuild hope."

New friends certainly have stepped up in the effort: the NAACP; Nissan; and athletic organizations including Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. NBC provided ongoing coverage of special builds and events. Existing corporate partners including Lowe's Companies Inc., Whirlpool Corp., The Dow Chemical Co., MASCO Corp. and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans have designated further support for hurricane recovery.

Making a Difference
Not only large organizations and corporations are partnering with Habitat to rebuild the Gulf Coast. Throughout the world, nearly a quarter of a million donors have given in support of Operation Home Delivery.

Also, in the immediate aftermath of the storms, more than 32,000 volunteers registered online to offer their labor to rebuild. The Operation Home Delivery office anticipates that, for long-term rebuilding, 25 percent of volunteers will be drawn locally from the coastal regions during the rebuilding process, while the remaining 75 percent will come from the volunteer database and other existing Habitat volunteer programs such as Global Village short-term mission trips and Collegiate Challenge school-break building. As of April 2006, already more than 16,000 "out of area" volunteers had participated in Gulf Coast rebuilding.

Minnesotan Earl Rapp volunteers with a Thrivent Builds Global Village team in Slidell, La.

Among those volunteers is Christy Stephenson. Stephenson is an AmeriCorps member who serves at the Dorchester Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Summerville, S.C. Just after Thanksgiving 2005, she joined a group of other Habitat AmeriCorps members to build in Baton Rouge, La. In May 2006, she returned to the Gulf Coast, to Mobile, Ala., to help more.

"Habitat for Humanity in general is compelling," Stephenson says, "but the situation in the Gulf Coast is even a little more compelling. There's desperation here. You wantto do something to help. Everyone says, 'I'd love to go volunteer, but ...' If that's the case, you have to consider your priorities, and helping here seems like a priority to me."

Helping in the Gulf region has been a priority for Kristin Anderson, too. A Lutheran pastor in Minnesota, Anderson came to Slidell, La., first in October 2005 to help with immediate relief efforts - handing out food and other vital supplies. She came back in November to help "gut" flood-damaged houses with another organization, and she made her third visit in January to help hang sheetrock in the houses she gutted. Anderson made her fourth volunteer visit to Slidell in May 2006 to volunteer with Habitat as part of a Global Village team.

Anderson understands the need for support in the face of trauma. Before moving to Minnesota, Anderson was a pastor in metro New York--at the time of Sept. 11. "When you live through something like that. ... We know what it's like to be scared," she explains.

She recalls that in the aftermath of Sept. 11, her church served as a stockpile for supplies and aid that were offered. "We were overwhelmed by the help," she says. Her assistance in the Gulf region is simply "returning the favor."

Hopeful Homeowners
"Sometimes I feel unworthy," Amy Prince says, referring to her Habitat house under construction. "But that makes me only more grateful. I see what I had; I see what I'm gaining. ... God puts us--and everything that happens to us--here for a reason."

Prince's neighbors in Gray have the same attitude. "It's going to be what we make it," says Dale Dufrene of the new neighborhood and its new opportunities.

Dufrene, a single father, shares his new Habitat house with his two sons, Jared, 15, and Jordon, 11. When he talks about the construction of the house, his eyes well up with tears. "We met so many people whose hearts are gold," he says. "The memories that I made along the way--I was part of all this, and I'll always have those memories of those great people."

At Dufrene's house dedication, attended by almost all of his new neighbors, as well as many of the volunteers who helped build the home, E.A. Angelloz, president of Bayou Area HFH, described the budding neighborhood: "At first there was nothing, but now ... Now, I think life is just beginning."

Though much work remains--in Gray, in New Orleans, in Bay St. Louis, in Bayou La Batre, in Mobile, throughout the Gulf region--such hopeful moments are happening every day. With the support of volunteers, donors, corporations and other organizations, Habitat for Humanity is committed to being at the heart of the rebuilding effort for years to come and ensuring that many other families like the Princes and the Dufrenes have a similar opportunity to recover from the sadness and loss of the hurricanes.

Leigh Powell is the editorial manager for Habitat for Humanity International.