News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters students and Habitat volunteers built a home for a Mississippi family that lost their home to Hurricane Katrina.
Sisters students working with local Habitat for Humanity volunteers have put the finishing touches on the framing for a “House-in-a-Box.”
The house, sponsored through Habitat for Humanity International, will be shipped to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, across the bay from Biloxi, in an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
The house will become home to the Louis and Bonnie Ryan family. The Ryans are a family of four with two teenage children. On August 29 Hurricane Katrina took their house and all its contents leaving them with a shell to call home. Immediately after the storm they lived on what was left of their porch. FEMA then came to their rescue and provided them with a small travel trailer.
Bonnie, who works at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, was approached by family, friends and co-workers to offer their assistance in getting them into a more suitable home. Since being approved for a Habitat for Humanity home, many volunteers have offered their assistance. Most of the volunteers offering their time and energy are teachers, staff, and students of the college.
The Sisters woodshop students framed the house in 12-foot or smaller sections that were then dismantled down to panels for shipment by truck.
“It seemed like a lot of fun doing it,” said student carpenter Jeremy Bristow. “Plus, it’s for a good cause, which makes it even better.”
Bristow hopes to accompany a Sisters Habitat team headed by Woody Woodsum to actually put up the house in Mississippi.
Woodsum has been to the Gulf Coast several times in recent months. He said Biloxi lost 10,000 homes.
“There’s millionaire houses, the trailer parks and the poor part of town _ it didn’t make any difference,” he said. “They’re all level now.”
Woodsum has been working with Sisters Habitat for five years. Now he feels a new calling.
“These people in these devastation areas are desperate,” he said. “As long as God gives me the strength to help these people, that’s my mission. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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