Published: January 26, 2008 10:54 am      

Students refurbish gutted homes, landscape

NEW ORLEANS, La. -- Regina Craft leaned on faith to get her through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The Lord has a plan, she believes, and everything that happens now will be up to God.

"He is our helper," Craft said. "It has been an experience that I wouldn't want anybody to go through."

Water damaged Craft's home in New Orleans' Gentilly* neighborhood, but she was at the house Wednesday, where she shared her story with a handful of students from Traverse City Christian School.

Students installed drywall and cleaned the yard at Craft's home as part of a weeklong mission trip to assist with hurricane relief.

"You have to put yourself in the situation," said Irina Postaychuk, 16, a sophomore at the school. "If I were in that situation, I would want someone to help me, too."

Craft evacuated to her brother's home in Georgia and returned months later to find her home destroyed.

"I gave the OK to gut it, and when I came back, everything was gone," she said. "As soon as the house is ready, I'll be glad to come back home."

Also Wednesday, a small group of students spent the morning tutoring elementary students at a Baptist school across the Mississippi River in the city's Westbank region.

Many students struggled academically after Katrina, said Bernice Davis, the school's principal. Some of them were away for months.

Davis was born in Traverse City and is a former principal at Traverse Bay Christian School.

Her school was the first in the Orleans Parish section of the Westbank to reopen, she said, although post-Katrina enrollment was at 61, down from roughly 170 before the storm.

Now it has climbed to 141.

"A lot of them moved elsewhere," Davis said, but for those who stayed "it was a relief to know that somebody was there."

Elsewhere, a one-story, brick house in the New Orleans East neighborhood was another home students refurbished.

The lawn likely hadn't been cut in years, and Anne Friedlander fired up the lawn mower in ankle-high grass.

Anne cleared the overgrown lawn Tuesday while Leah Beemer, 16, raked up the clippings as she and classmates at Traverse City Christian School helped landscape the yard. Inside, students installed drywall to the home's ceiling and walls.

The majority of students were assigned to certain projects at the First Baptist Church of nearby Chalmette, but a delegation of nearly 20 students was sent into New Orleans to work on homes.

"I like the houses better, because we have a smaller group and you get to actually meet the people who live in the houses," said Leah, a sophomore at TC Christian. "I feel like you can do more."

She and many of her peers say they keep the ultimate goal in the back of their minds as they work each day that their efforts will help someone else regain their home.

"Yesterday, I was painting doors, and I was thinking I have to do a good job," Leah said. "People will be looking at it."

The Traverse City workers will spend just a week on their trip, but their labors will add to that of those before them and those yet to come. In some instances, students could move ahead with projects such as drywall installation because a prior group had already finished insulation.

"We insulated an entire home in the last two days," said Les Wiseman, a parent volunteer. "Our task is to come in and start hanging drywall and start making rooms look like rooms again."

It's a process that is slow-going, partly because of the rotation of volunteer groups. But it's one that ultimately yields results, and students said that makes it all the more worthwhile.

"When you drive around the city, there's not a lot of visible damage, but when you get inside, the houses are all gutted," said Jesse Gagnon, 15, a sophomore at the school. "When you're working at a house, you can see more of the progress you're making."

Besides the home in New Orleans East, students worked at a house on Cleveland Street, several blocks from the French Quarter. The homeowner of the latter home recently had surgery and was not at the site Tuesday, parent volunteer Randy Ritsema said. And a neighbor of the east-side home said its residents have been living elsewhere.

But several students spoke fondly of a woman whose home they finished insulating early Tuesday, a homeowner who told them she would not have been able to renovate without them.

Her gratitude, they said, offered a clearer perspective.

"It's really going to make a difference in my life," said junior Chantel Wisniewski, 16, who worked in New Orleans East on Tuesday. "I will know when I go home that I helped someone here."