If it weren’t for my VISTA service, I wouldn’t have had the experience I needed to help nearly 500 people as they fled the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina.

On August 28, 2005, I was working as a VISTA for the Webster Habitat for Humanity (HFH) in Springhill, Louisiana. I helped with fundraising and coordinated the Collegiate Challenge, a program that brought in college students to build houses during their spring break. My responsibilities required me to find places for the college students to stay, find groups that would feed them one or two meals a day, and generate funding from various organizations.

Everything changed August 29.

Springhill is a rural community as far north in Louisiana as you can get without tripping over the Arkansas border. While we were spared the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, we were not spared her aftermath. Like everyone else in the country, we watched it unfold on television. Unlike many, we were close enough to take in evacuees who had been displaced by the storm.

I saw these people and my heart went out to them. Just about everyone has seen the images, but it doesn’t compare to standing face to face with them. They were tired, hungry, haggard, and scared. They had lost everything. They had only what they could carry and that wasn’t much.

The days following the storm were a whirlwind. All I recall is doing what needed to be done. We set up temporary shelters, got these folks fed, and coordinated distribution of food and clothing donations, which, thankfully, were plentiful. Eventually we had to create a permanent solution. My friends, John Downs and Tommy Brown, both members of the Ministerial Alliance, opened the Trinity Worship Center gymnasium to the evacuees.

As soon as Trinity’s gym opened, Springhill needed someone to manage it. When the town leaders called a meeting at the Civic Center, I wasn’t even going to go. I had responsibilities to my family and to Webster Habitat for Humanity. I thought, “I’m only one person. What can I do?” But a friend convinced me to go and what I saw was an opportunity to serve my community and use the skills that Habitat for Humanity and VISTA had helped me develop. Someone had to manage the shelter and make sure everyone got what they needed to survive. Someone had to step up and assume responsibility for the evacuees. I felt a nudge and I took the step. That nudge, I’m convinced now, was God urging me to help these people.

My VISTA experience kicked in right then and there. Webster HFH released me from my commitment so I could assume the duties of running the shelter. The way I saw it, these people needed shelter, food, and basic facilities first. They got that at the shelter. Next they needed to get in touch with FEMA so they could register for whatever assistance they could get. We set that up at the local Habitat affiliate.

But these people needed to move beyond basics. Because of my work with VISTA, I had the connections around the community to set things in motion. Tommy Brown and I went to the Chamber of Commerce and addressed its members. We asked them for whatever assistance they could provide—but not money. We asked them to help us locate vacant houses and apartments.

We asked landlords to waive first month’s rent to help people who wanted to settle here once they got funding from the government. One woman donated a house; another furnished it. Others opened vacant homes and apartments. I also pursued local employers for the evacuees. A local restaurant needed a waitress, so I recommended one of the girls we were sheltering. My husband, Timmy, owns a landscaping company and hired a couple of the older boys to help on a couple jobs. I arranged for others to join cleaning crews to clean offices after hours.

A group of more than 20 Vietnamese evacuees posed a particular challenge because they spoke little English. The only other person around who spoke Vietnamese was Tam, an orphan from Vietnam who was raised here and now owns a nail salon in Springhill. He volunteered his time to help communicate between us, FEMA, and the Vietnamese evacuees. He even hired one of the Vietnamese girls to learn how to do nails in his shop.

I did my part to help the evacuees, but so did my husband. Not only did he continue his regular job, but he was also at the shelter when I needed someone to take out the trash or help the evacuees move into homes. My daughters got involved, too, by befriending or looking after some of the younger girls at the shelter.

By rough count, 500 evacuees came through Springhill looking for assistance. Some stayed, some moved on. Regardless, our work at the shelter was like witnessing a thousand wonders. I look back at it and think there is no way things should have worked. Things came together that never should have and everything that had to happen, happened.

Katrina’s legacy, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 before it, will be one of horrors, despair, and destruction. These events earned those legacies. But our work, here in Springhill and that of volunteers all over the region, deserves its own legacy, a legacy of perseverance, a legacy of sheltering those who have nowhere else to go, a legacy of reaching out, a legacy of service.

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