Volunteers frame three houses in four days

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 7 October 2000

Yachtres Jackson did not believe her ears when told that a crew of nine carpenters from Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) was going to frame her house in one day. Now that three homes stand in Camilla, Ga. where two tornadoes left only scattered remnants of mobile homes last Valentine's Day, Jackson and her neighbors are having a difficult time believing their eyes.

"I'm telling people to go out there and look at it," said community member Laura Vann.

"They don't believe it. There was a slab there Monday morning and a house by night. That usually takes weeks."

The carpenters, employees of Bender Construction in Indiana, joined a handful of other volunteers September 18 to 22 during the first week of labor for the newly opened MDS project in Camilla.

When contractor Bob Bender decided to take on the challenge of framing the houses in one week, he was planning to bring a van load of ten or twelve carpenters with him. But when the van left for Camilla there were only eight men aboard, increasing the challenge.

The crew wanted to frame four houses, but rain prevented them from working on Friday. The workers were unable to set the trusses on the fourth house. The other three houses have been completely framed and shingled. "We would have pulled it off if it hadn't been for the rain," said Bender. "If only I could have had six more hours."

"I am extremely impressed with [the Bender crew]," said Richard Swartzendruber, the MDS contact person for a local congregation in nearby Meigs, Georgia. "They are an excellent asset to the cause."

Swartzendruber and other volunteers from the Meigs congregation and churches in Montezuma, Georgia have been working with disaster survivors since the storms struck Camilla last February. These local volunteers provided immediate cleanup and repair assistance after the disaster, repairing five roofs in a week's time.

But the worst damage was irreparable. A trailer park south of Camilla was literally blown off of the map. With 205 homes completely destroyed in Mitchell County alone, the process of rebuilding was far more than the local volunteers could handle by themselves.

As months passed and dozens of families were still without homes, the MDS Binational Office in Pennsylvania offered Swartzendruber some help. By opening a project in Camilla, MDS is now able to house and feed volunteers from all across the United States and Canada.

"This is a low-income area," said Laura Vann. She wears a T-shirt that says, "Stop me before I volunteer again." Vann is now in her seventh month of volunteering with Community Recovery, a local program that addresses immediate needs of the survivors.

"We just hate that it's been seven months," said Vann, "[People] have been so patient."

The survivors whom Vann is working with have had a difficult time qualifying for assistance. In many cases they have worked their entire lives to pay for a mobile home and few possessions. But with inadequate insurance they lost it all in one unfortunate storm.

Jackson is employed but as a single mother does not quality for a loan large enough to purchase a home. The income to debt ratio of low-income families is the root of the problem. They may work hard, but they do not earn enough money to build good credit.

Community Recovery is now working with MDS to help connect survivors like Jackson with volunteers like the Bender crew.

While Community Recovery helps families obtain loans for building materials, MDS provides volunteers to carry out the construction.

The Bender crew was the first group of volunteers up to bat. A month of preparation by local MDS volunteers assured that the foundations were in place and the materials were on site before the carpenters arrived. With nothing to hold them back, the carpenters made framing three houses in one week look easy.

Ottis Mast, the MDS Region II Director, visited Camilla during the first couple days of the project.

"You make it happen," Mast told the Bender crew. "Without volunteers we can't get anything done."

MDS Project Director Jim Scott is concerned that the momentum will drop off after the Bender crew returns to Indiana. "We don't have any volunteers lined up for next week," said Scott. "We could stand quite a few handy people. We need hands."

The Camilla Project is expected to run through April and there are still months of labor ahead before these homes will be habitable. To volunteer, call the project direct at (912) 336-9952.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org