Houses of worship win praise for swift response to evacuees' plight

11:38 PM CDT on Friday, September 9, 2005

By SAM HODGES and LORI PRICE / The Dallas Morning News

For Linda Cooley, a visit to Dallas' Concord Missionary Baptist Church this week meant a three-course meal, a bag of toiletries, a Wal-Mart gift card, a blue "Sunday go to meeting" hat, and assurances that more help would be forthcoming.

Hurricane Katrina claimed Ms. Cooley's New Orleans home, but she has found sustenance – and friends – at Concord.

"It uplifts my spirits to come here," said Ms. Cooley, now staying with her sister in Dallas. "And it keeps me from watching CNN."

While the federal government response to Hurricane Katrina has yielded widespread criticism and the promise of congressional hearings, the faithful in north-central Texas and elsewhere have earned high marks from victims and disaster experts.

"What would it be like if ... [faith-based volunteers] weren't there?" said Ande Miller, director of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster. "It would be incomprehensible."

The importance of churches and other religious groups was underscored Friday when Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, joined by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, accused FEMA and other federal agencies of causing "chaos and dysfunction."

"Dallas can no longer wait for help," Ms. Miller said at a City Hall news conference. She then announced that local faith groups, led by the Potter's House, would lead a blitz to move 1,500 evacuees from shelters to apartments.

The effort of such groups so far "makes you proud to be a person of faith," said Bishop T.D. Jakes, founding minister of the Potter's House.

Since Hurricane Katrina, these volunteers have been engaged in a service extravaganza, providing food, clothing and shelter, but also medical care and legal advice. They've helped place children in schools, public and private, and tended to needs both predictable and surprising.

Volunteer barbers at Concord Missionary Baptist, in the Red Bird area, gave haircuts to about 50 evacuees Wednesday. Today, Rabbi Oren Hayon of Temple Emanu-El in North Dallas is to perform a bar mitzvah that the hurricane prevented from occurring in New Orleans.

At St. Rita Catholic Community in North Dallas, volunteer Melissa Banzhof learned of an evacuee needing dental care.

"This gentleman got hurt in the flood. He was knocked over, and his teeth got loose," she said. "My first instinct was to call a dentist."

She followed that instinct, quickly lining up a dentist friend to treat the man for free.

Although the Salvation Army may be the faith-based group best known for disaster relief – it was founded by a Methodist minister in London in 1865 – many others have long made such work a focus, both through fundraising and sending trained teams to domestic and foreign disasters.

Hurricane Katrina has attracted many such teams in support roles. For example, the Texas Baptist Men – an affiliate of the Baptist General Convention of Texas – has debris removal and "mud out" teams in place along the Gulf Coast.

"Faith-based organizations sort of fill gaps in the national emergency response," said Bill Waugh, who teaches disaster management courses at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

But this crisis has a sprawling second front – the communities across the region that have taken in evacuees. And that has brought local congregations to the fore.

Pat Webb's voice has grown raspy from answering questions as a relief coordinator at Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, which has assisted about 200 displaced families.

"I don't have time to think about how many times it rings," Ms. Webb said of her phone. "I just answer it and go from there."

Because of 9-11 and last year's busy hurricane season, more and more churches have committees for disaster relief, with members trained by denominational specialists or the American Red Cross, said Tom Hazelwood, disaster response executive for the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

At Concord Missionary Baptist, Edna Pemberton heads the "quick response team," which formed after local flooding in the early 1990s. Ms. Pemberton, a longtime community leader, said her team monitored the hurricane and expected to go to New Orleans to help but quickly shifted focus once the need in Dallas became clear.

Just two days after the storm, the church was feeding evacuees. Now the church is providing comprehensive services to more than 80 displaced families, with an emphasis on helping them deal with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other government offices.

Leaders from area mosques and other Muslim organizations also quickly formed a task force to help evacuees. The task force has found about 50 homes, apartments and hotel rooms for evacuees, sent more than 200 volunteers to shelters and raised money for the American Red Cross and other relief agencies.

The task force organized the same day evacuees began arriving in the area, said Saffia Meek of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"As soon as the news hit, many of us across the area were calling the Red Cross and other agencies to see what the needs were," she said.

Along with speed, faith groups have shown flexibility, adapting to needs and using their contacts within the community to make things happen.

Deneen Anderson was not part of a disaster relief committee but got herself and her church – Community Missionary Baptist in DeSoto – involved soon after the hurricane's devastation became clear. She has essentially put her job of selling insurance on hold to help evacuees find housing.

"I'm flying by the seat of my pants," she said, but added that she and other church members had, through networking, found four vacant homes and helped 50 evacuees move into them. "We're rounding up furniture now."

Faith groups have another advantage in crisis – a deep bench.

For example, DeSoto Mayor Michael Hurtt said his first impulse, after realizing that as many as 500 evacuees were in his community, was to call on the 58 local congregations for help.

"We don't have many large organizations, but we do have all these local churches," he said.

The mayor said that when he called a meeting of church representatives for last Monday, he expected about 30 to attend. More than 120 came.

The local ministerial alliance has since organized into relief committees and created a Web site where community members can learn of ways to meet evacuees' specific needs.

Bishop Jakes, speaking at Friday's City Hall news conference, declared that unprecedented cooperation among faith groups has been one positive outcome of the crisis.

Hurricane Katrina, he said, "has blown God's people together."

The imperative to serve is a common denominator among religious traditions – one that some clergy say influences the style as well as substance of relief efforts.

"First, we see them as humans, as persons of worth and dignity, which is why we refuse to use the refugee label," said the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist.

Rabbi David Stern of Temple Emanu-El joined in applauding the individual and joint efforts of Dallas-area congregations. But Rabbi Stern, chair of an interfaith coalition that will help match evacuees to apartments, sounded a note of caution.

"I don't want the evacuees to become examples showing everyone that the faith communities have it all under control," he said. "Our success should in no way preclude what the government entities should do."

But for now, given the numbers and needs of those displaced by the storm, there's too much work to do for area faith groups to spend much time fussing about the government.

Many of the evacuees intend to stay in the area, which means helping them find not only housing but also a job, said the Rev. Bryan Carter, senior pastor of Concord Missionary Baptist.

"We know it's going to be a marathon," he said of the relief effort. "It's not going to be a sprint."

E-mail samhodges@dallasnews.com and lprice@dallasnews.com