Rebuilding My Church

People ask me all the time about my church's recovery from Katrina, and it's a hard question to answer succinctly. Our denomination went in a different direction from most, and made the decision early on after the Storm to divide the funds and give away 2/3 of what was donated by generous members of my faith tradition to local community groups, especially those led by people of color. The remaining 1/3, which amounted to a little over $1 million, was dedicated to ALL the churches of our denomination that were damaged, as well as to the Baton Rouge congregation that was coordinating the first volunteer efforts.

The upshot of that decision was that our churches of Greater New Orleans were left largely unrecovered. My church building alone sustained over $1 million worth of damage, so you can imagine that our share of a divided fund did not go far. We have been careful stewards, and diligent in our creative efforts to get things done at the lowest possible cost, but the thing is, here it is, nearing the 6th anniversary of Katrina, and we still are operating on a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy, with large areas of the building with scarred concrete floors, unfinished walls and ceilings, a limping elderly HVAC system, a leaky roof, no working church kitchen, broken and dangerous entryway, and not a handicapped accessible restroom in the place. As if all that were not enough and more than enough, in addition to Storm damage, we're under new building codes that were enacted by the state legislature after the Storm.

For those of you who like details, here's the list I'm bringing to our denominational meeting next week to seek more help from my co-religionists:

Replace/upgrade HVAC system ruined by flood $12,600.00
Fire Alarm for new Community Kitchen 4,000.00
Iron work for new Community Kitchen 3,200.00
Plumbing replace/upgrade 20,000.00
Kitchen vent for new Community Kitchen 7,000.00
Fire Sprinkler System Pump Room (new requirement) 19,000.00
Installation of Fire Pump (new requirement) 48,500.00
Arch Finishes for Fire Exits (new requirement) 35,000.00
Fire Alarm for Building (other than kitchen – new requirement)) 19,000.00
Fire Doors (new requirement) 1,500.00
Fire Damper (new requirement) 3,000.00
Repair of Entranceway Damaged by Flood Waters 6,200.00
Repair of Leak & Plaster Work at Stained Glass Window 2,800.00
FUUNO SUB-TOTAL: $181,800.00
MINUS AMOUNT ON HAND IN FUUNO’s BUILDING FUND: -77,000.00
AMOUNT TO BE RAISED: $104,800.00

Note that the above figures DO NOT include finishing of walls and ceilings and installing new floors -- we'll continue along as we have been, doing that kind of work with volunteers, our own and those wonderful folks coming from out of town. We'll also have to figure out how to afford some kind of post-construction elevator system, so that our second floor is accessible. The list above just gets us a Permanent Certificate of Occupancy, and allows us to open the longed-for Community Kitchen, getting us on the way to wholeness and resuming our full-time urban, "food ministry."

If any of you reading this have funds of any amount to donate, or if you'd like to have the new Fire Pump named after you, be sure to contact me. The church would be exceedingly grateful, and so would I.