Catholic Charites helps CREW rebuild homes

Catholic Charities helps rebuild homes, hope after hurricanes

KRISTIE NGUYEN, of the Florida Catholic staff

CLEWISTON — All that remained of Joaquin and Rachel Garcia’s home after Hurricane Wilma hit in October 2005 were the brick arches Joaquin Garcia had built around the porch.
For a year and a half, the Garcias lived in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer “that got smaller by the day,” Joaquin Garcia said. “As the months went on, it got smaller and smaller. Even the bed (shrank).”
The couple’s certificate of occupancy — granted just weeks ago — sits in a frame on the floor of their newly built home.
The Garcias were one of 122 families Catholic Charities helped after the storm through its Neighbors to the Rescue program. Sponsored by the Florida Disaster Relief Fund and the Volunteer Florida Foundation, the program puts neighbors in touch with neighbors to provide hurricane relief. It “connects volunteers, taps into community resources and creates virtual warehouses of available materials, goods, services, transportation and housing,” according to Catholic Charities. It’s an example of the work for which Florida’s seven Catholic Charities agencies received this year’s Humanitarian Award from the Governor’s Hurricane Conference.
Neighbors to the Rescue program coordinator Guadalupe Depaz said Catholic Charities relief efforts in Hendry County started off small and included providing assistance with a food pantry and items such as diapers, as well as financial assistance with utilities and rent.
Catholic Charities quickly began networking with other agencies through the Community Rebuilding Ecumenical Workforce program which is made up of a wide variety of faith-based recovery groups in Hendry County, allowing the members to aid their neighbors without the duplication of services.CREW volunteers were among those who helped rebuild the Garcias’ home. A group of workers from Indiana constructed the shell of the house in five days, Joaquin Garcia said.
“We had people all the way from the states of Washington, Maine, New York, Minnesota, Indiana and Maryland” who volunteered, he said. “They did a lot of good.”
In the 39 years Joaquin and Rachel Garcia have lived in Florida, they had never been hit by a hurricane.
“So finally, we had our part of it and we were right in the middle of it,” Joaquin Garcia said.
The Garcias sought refuge with their son, who lives on Florida’s east coast, during the storm.
FLORIDA CATHOLIC PHOTO BY HEATHER FELTON
After Hurricane Wilma destroyed Rachel and Joaquin Garcia’s home in October 2005, these brick arches and porch Joaquin Garcia built were the only things left standing. The couple’s new home was added to the rear of the porch.
“Then they called me and said my house is gone,” Joaquin Garcia said. “They said even the palm trees were down. I said, ‘No way.’”
He and his wife are still settling into their new home, shifting around furniture and retrieving household items from storage.Almost everything inside the house is a symbol of others’ generosity. A couple who volunteered in the hurricane aftermath installed the slate-colored flooring and the shelves in the Garcias’ walk-in closet. CREW gave the couple a glass-top dining table set, and a drawer in the living room came from a Naples hotel that donated furniture from its rooms.
“It’s been a long year and a half,” Joaquin Garcia said. “But we got here, thanks to God.”
Since its foundation, Depaz said, Hendry County’s Neighbors to the Rescue program has received donations of more than 200 volunteer hours; eight complete sets of furnishings from Port of the Islands Resort & Marina; linens from a Bed, Bath & Beyond in Palm Beach County; food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Harry Chapin Food Bank and area schools; $40,000 from Catholic Charities of Jacksonville; and items from the United Way of Lee County and Martha’s Helping Hands, as well as hundreds of donations from area residents.
As one of the agencies listed in the nomination of the Florida Catholic Conference for the Humanitarian Award, the people of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Venice Inc., feel honored to receive the recognition, said Peter Routsis-Arroyo, CEO.
Even now, more than a year and a half after Hurricane Wilma — the last hurricane of the 2004 and 2005 seasons to hit the Venice Diocese — Routsis-Arroyo said his staff is still involved in hurricane recovery efforts. More than 100 families are still living in trailers in the Clewiston area alone, he said.
“We continue to provide hurricane recovery to these three counties (Lee, Collier and Hendry) with funding from the Volunteer Florida Foundation,” he said.
The response efforts in the diocese began in August 2004 after Hurricane Charley slammed into the Port Charlotte Harbor, driving over the neighboring cities of Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte. The wrath didn’t stop there. The storm rampaged through the rest of Charlotte County, as well as Lee, DeSoto, Hardee and Hendry counties. Five of the diocese’s 10 counties felt the effects.
“That’s when we mobilized,” Routsis-Arroyo said, with the immediate activation of disaster recovery sites at parishes throughout the affected areas.
“This also helped to unify the entire Catholic family, from the bishop in the Catholic Center to St. Vincent de Paul, the Knights of Columbus and parishioners. We all came together to provide help and support.”
The 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons also resulted in the creation of a statewide disaster coordinator position for the Florida Catholic Conference, held by Deacon Marcus Hepburn. It also produced a mutual aid agreement, under which the seven Catholic Charities and seven bishops in the state of Florida would come to one another’s aid in a natural disaster, Routsis-Arroyo said.
“We tested that with Hurricane Denis in early 2005 when Denis hit Pensacola,” he said. “Catholic Charities of Venice went up to Tallahassee-Pensacola and helped them with disaster recovery.”
After Hurricane Katrina hit, Catholic Charities USA asked Catholic Charities agencies throughout Florida to help the affected states. The seven Florida bishops decided to adopt Biloxi, Miss., where Catholic Charities provided hurricane relief for more than one month, Routsis-Arroyo said. Catholic Charities realized the need for a disaster plan specifically for farm workers after Hurricane Wilma hit the diocese, he added.
“We worked closely with Deacon Marcus and emergency management in Collier County to develop a plan specifically for Immokalee,” Routsis-Arroyo said.
This year, more than $100,000 worth of emergency food is being kept in a Catholic Charities storage area in Lakeland in case of a hurricane. The seven dioceses also share three mobile communication trailers, which “can power up a parish hall for a disaster recovery spot,” Routsis-Arroyos said.
The Diocese of Venice also set up a disaster amateur radio network, which has five base stations in Venice, Arcadia, Port Charlotte, Naples and Fort Myers.
“That was the beauty of this disaster,” Routsis-Arroyos said. “It forced us to come together.”