Saws and hammers ring true as faith community builds homes for Katrina victims
by Dolores Fox Ciardelli
Quiet moments were rare last April on the construction site in McComb, Miss. Volunteers from the Danville area were working in the humid 90-degree weather to build 16 homes for a development called Victory Park, using monetary and in-kind donations.
But construction supervisor Fred Hull would try to find a secluded spot to stand quietly and listen to the sounds of the volunteers plying their newly learned skills.
“It sounded like a symphony,” recalled Hull, a Diablo resident. “Hammers and saws. Everyone working together.”
As a contractor, this was music to his ears. As a man on a mission with God, this was a step beyond his career of building expensive houses for people in California; this project was for those left without a roof over their heads after Hurricane Katrina destroyed 28,000 homes in August 2005.
Laying the foundation
Operation Katrina was conceived shortly after the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast, displacing half a million people. At Community Presbyterian Church of Danville, as well as at other places, people were asking: What can we do to help?Kellye French of St. Isidore’s Catholic Church immediately sprang into action, organizing volunteers to accept donations, sort them, and send them off in trucks to the affected areas. CPC members began to think in terms of housing.
Then Megan Voos, a 1987 graduate of Monte Vista High School and a former CPC youth minister, contacted Hull. She had left Danville to work for the Voice of Calvary Ministries, a nonprofit organization based in Jackson, Miss., which has been helping with health care, youth services and housing for 30 years. Now Voos made a plea to her former California community to help Voice of Calvary with the new scores of homeless.
“We didn’t know what we could do,” said Hull. “The devastation was so complete.”
Some church leaders traveled to Mississippi in October to meet with Voice of Calvary and the Ecumenical Association for Disaster Relief in Pike County and assess the situation.
“We met with local black churches,” said Hull, “and we began to get interest from local churches.”
When others joined the CPC efforts, they formed an Umbrella of Churches, to provide shelter in the storm. Altogether 20 congregations from Northern California ended up contributing money or volunteers.
“My job back then was to be the token developer,” said Hull.
Hull had worked for Ponderosa Homes for many years, then he and his wife Jan ran Homestead Development. Hull, now 63, retired in 1996 but soon was working fulltime at CPC as business manager. He and Jan are also involved in the church’s program to run Miracle Ranch, an orphanage in Ensenada, Mexico.
“Retirement is a myth,” Hull said with a laugh. “God tapped me on the shoulder.”
He felt his life as an aggressive developer had prepared him for managing the church budget at that time. And his career in building had prepared him to run a construction project, even one that included the challenges of raising funds, training volunteers in the building trades, and working in another state with different building codes, not to mention local customs.
“There was a strong feeling in October or November that there needed to be one person in charge of the whole thing,” said Hull. Although he accepted the leadership role, he emphasized that he was not alone. “I talked to God on a daily basis.”
At first they planned to build one house.
“Then it became two, then three. Soon it was up to eight,” recalled Hull. The first phase ended up with 16 homes. “Eight on one side of the street and eight on the other.”
They purchased four acres in McComb in January using $250,000 seed money from NeighborWorks America. The Umbrella of Churches raised another $500,000. The 1,200-square-foot homes have three bedrooms and two baths. The lots are generous, Hull, noted, about 70 feet by 150 feet.
Building the walls
The Hulls’ driveway was a lumber yard for three months as supplies were purchased. From January to March, while Voice of Calvary Ministries prepared the foundations in Victory Park, local volunteers worked each Saturday morning to frame the houses in their church parking lots.“We got the interest of the churches,” said Hull, explaining people were glad to help here who might not be comfortable helping with projects in Oakland or perhaps couldn’t afford to go to their missions in Mexico, Rumania or Bulgaria.
U-Haul trucks driven by volunteers delivered the supplies to the five churches. Hull and other contractors were on site to lend their expertise as the bottom and top plates, studs, headers, cripples and sills were joined to become the walls for the homes in Victory Park.
“Most contractors are happiest sitting alone in the front seat of their trucks,” mused Hull. “But I called friends in the contracting business and every one said yes and showed up.”
They were dubbed the “smart guys” and gave instruction as well as kept things moving along.
“They worked in the parking lots for three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half hours,” Hull said. “It was 27-30 walls per home.”
He noted that during the 35 days of construction from January to April, it did not rain once. “One Saturday the forecast was snow,” he recalled. “We finished at 11:45 – and then it started to hail.”
The volunteers also sent their goodwill to McComb by writing on the studs, messages such as “May God bless you and keep you safe.” They numbered the walls for assembly and off went the “houses in a box,” transported by truck and train to Mississippi.
On to Mississippi
The Umbrella of Churches sent 300 volunteers in two weeklong shifts to McComb, a city of 13,000, located in the southwest corner of Mississippi, 108 miles northeast of New Orleans.“VOC sent three key people,” said Hull. “They really knew what they were doing, and they were good with people.” Eight to 10 “contractor types” also went with the local volunteers.
The volunteers gathered at St. Isidore’s in Danville for a dinner in May to see old friends, including some from Mississippi, to view a seven-minute DVD on Operation Katrina, and to hail the effort that included 17 churches from half a dozen denominations.
They talked about clearing the land, putting up the walls, installing the electrical panels, and painting, and all the work that went into feeding and housing the volunteers. Many of them stayed at Percy Quin State Park, a lovely spot but also home to alligators. Hull recalled eating many a deep-fried meal at the Golden Corral downtown.
A visitor from Mississippi shared that some McComb residents thought the volunteers from California were “nuts.”
“By the end of the day, it went from ‘It can’t be done,’ to ‘Look what they’re doing,'” he recalled.
“The walls went up, and the walls went down,” said Dick Sanner, CPC mission pastor, in the DVD, referring to the walls between people and different cultures. “New relationships were built.”
Hull said the enthusiastic volunteers learned their new skills quickly.
“The biggest problem was telling people they had to stop working and get to the airport,” he said.
Earlier this year, Voice of Calvary Ministries held workshops to explain how to apply for home ownership in Victory Park and in April began qualifying families. The houses cost from $65,000-$75,000 and are financed with a “pay it forward” plan, using proceeds from house sales to finance future loans. By May, 170 families had applied to purchase the homes, according to the Enterprise-Journal, a newspaper in McComb.
Hull said volunteers from Lakeside Church in Folsom traveled to Mississippi this month to finish up with the painting and help the families move in.
Now for Phase Two
Hull was expecting a contingent from Mississippi this week to put together a conceptual development program for Phase Two. A 20-acre parcel has been identified, directly south of the existing project, for building another 25-50 homes, depending on how much funding is received.“We will come up with three new house designs for Phase Two,” said Hull. “We had two in the first phase, so we’ll have four or five in Phase Two.” He said he originally designed the houses “California-style” but his partners in Mississippi told him the houses needed porches in front where people could sit and wave to all their neighbors.
Another 25 churches have expressed interest in helping with Phase II. The Umbrella of Churches DVD tells about Operation Katrina and outlines how others can help. Hull also organized his thousands of e-mails and hundreds of documents and the result is a 190-page handbook, which is available for others to follow in the footsteps of the Umbrella of Churches.
“The response did not come from the government,” said C.J. Jones of Voice of Calvary Ministries in the DVD. “The response did not come from your social service organizations. The response came from churches.”
“The government money was going to streets and railroads,” explained Hull. But rebuilding homes was – and still is – falling to individuals and to groups.
Hull gives God full credit for the coincidences that added up to the successful venture, noting that every day something unexpected happened: He was worried about $15,000 he needed, and a church that said it had raised $40,000 instead gave $55,000; more than 500 volunteers came together to build the houses, including 300 who went to Mississippi; a young man at the church put together the DVD being used to inspire similar projects.
“If you truly feel God has called you to do something, do it,” Hull said he has learned from the experience. “It will be the sleigh ride of a lifetime. More friends and help will drop in your lap than you ever thought existed.”
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