St. Bernard Project – Pay It Forward 2016
I got to spend some time with pretty amazing people from the St. Bernard Project. We were working on a rebuilding a house that still hasn't made it back after being destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.
St. Bernard Project's mission is to shorten the time between disaster and full recovery by ensuring that disaster-impacted citizens and communities recover in a prompt, efficient and predictable manner.
SBP's biggest need: volunteers!
The organization started in 2006 in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana after Katrina ravaged the area.
SBP has rebuilt homes for more than 1,000 families with the help of 100,000 volunteers in Monmouth & Ocean counties, Staten Island, Rockaway, NY, New Orleans, Joplin, MO and San Marcos, TX.
Alice, a retired health care worker in her 80s, has lived in her Highlands home for 42 years and plans to live there for the rest of her life. Surviving Hurricane Irene in 2011, Alice was unprepared for another major hurricane to strike and upend her life. Like so many others, in 2012 Hurricane Sandy destroyed all of her belongings, keepsakes, family photos, and her family home. After Sandy’s impact, she moved to a family friend’s rental property, but had to relocate when the temporary home had to be elevated. Now, she is renting a house and trying to make ends meet with her limited income and the added expenses of renting a home.
We were tasked with insulation.
A big thank you to the volunteers from Holy Trinity, the dedicated members of AmeriCorps who have dedicated their lives to community service, Emily Dolan and Kevin McGee of The St. Bernard Project. These people and this organization is truly paying it forward.