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Charity helps evacuees find a place to call home
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| By: SCOTT TYNES |
September 26, 2005 |
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Some Hurricane Katrina evacuees staying in the Brookhaven area are taking advantage of temporary housing on Highway 84 West.
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Iowa businessman Merrill Oster, who has family ties to Brookhaven, came up with the concept and worked with a Christian charitable foundation to see it through, said Steven White, minister of music at Easthaven Baptist Church and a local organizer of the program and the church's shelter activities.
"He was looking for something to do," White said. "He had seen the trailer courts the government set up in Florida and he asked why the church couldn't do that here. We could."
The foundation funded 14 camper trailers and shipped them to Brookhaven. All of the trailers have queen-size beds, stoves, refrigerators and showers. Some have additional bunk beds. Churches in Cedar Falls, Iowa, furnished the trailers with dishes and other necessary items to make them livable.
The plan, White said, is to provide them to evacuees who will be staying in Brookhaven on a semi-permanent basis for quite some time. The opportunity was not limited to evacuees at the Easthaven shelter.
"We made it available to everyone at once, and then we have a selection committee to make the assignments," White said.
Assignments have since been made, but only one family has been notified because occupancy has been delayed awaiting permits and utility hookups.
"We thought it best to wait to tell them until they could move to avoid any more anxiety," White said.
Freddy Benit of Meraux, La., his wife, Therese, and two children, Simeon and Melanie, said the trailer was a blessing.
"We lost everything," Freddy Benit said. "We saved one of two vehicles and a few suitcases of clothing. Our faith and trust in Him is bringing us through every day."
Benit said he has a good job in New Orleans, but the business was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the company is in the process of rebuilding its facility. He said the children are enrolled at Brookhaven Academy so the family will likely stay for at least a year even if his employer calls back the employees.
"I'll probably commute during that time. That way we can keep the family in a stable environment," he said.
Benit praised the entire Brookhaven community for its assistance efforts.
"The reception here has been wonderful, tremendous, heart-warming - I just don't have all the words," he said. "The people of the town have even been helping to provide items beyond what the shelter can provide."
Those items include clothing and school supplies to help his children make a successful transition, Benit said.
White said the camper trailers have been set up on a closed trailer court on Highway 84 about four miles west of Brookhaven. The court had recently been purchased for private development, and the new owner has delayed his plans for up to six months to allow the church to use it, White said. The owner did not want to be identified.
"In six months, we hope they can find housing and jobs and become a part of our permanent community," White said. "We really want people who are planning on staying here in Lincoln County, but that is not a requirement to get into a trailer."
The trailers will be reissued as those in them find permanent homes and jobs, he said.
"This is God giving us an opportunity here that is really unprecedented," White said. "We're just trying to use all the resources of our church to assimilate these people into our county. Our church family has embraced the people here."
After six months, however, residents can buy the trailers or they will be returned to the foundation for resale, he said.
In the meantime, the trailer court has been christened Jabez Park. The name refers to the prayer of Jabez "who essentially asked God to increase his territory. The Lord has certainly increased our territory by allowing us to reach out to people we never could have before, so it seemed a natural name for it," White said.
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©The Daily Leader 2009
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