Thirty five members of the Seekonk Congregational Church are going to spend the week rebuilding churches in Louisiana.

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 19, 2006

BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer

It started as a school vacation trip for a group of teenagers who needed to do community service before their confirmation. Now, it's a mission for a group of volunteers who are going to Louisiana to help people in their sister churches rebuild.

The team now numbers 35 and ranges in age from 11 to 81. Yesterday morning, after a brief prayer service, they boarded a bus at 6 a.m. at the Seekonk Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, and headed south.

The bus was packed with small bags holding personal belongings and an assortment of tools, boots and work clothes, and a determination to spend much of the week doing whatever the volunteers can to help.

And help is sorely needed. Six months after Hurricane Katrina, the Crescent City is still struggling.

The Rev. Daehler Hayes, 69, a former Rhode Island conference minister for the United Church of Christ and an active member of the Seekonk church, is coordinating the relief effort with Seekonk Congregational's associate pastor, the Rev. Marilyn E. Ricci.

Hayes said the United Church of Christ includes seven churches in New Orleans, all of which were destroyed or heavily damaged in August, as were the homes of countless parishioners.

After they decided in December to undertake the trip, the Seekonk Congregational volunteers came up with a plan:

They would spend four days working at various sites in New Orleans, from helping to make repairs to clearing sites of debris -- whatever is needed.

They would sleep on air mattresses and sleeping bags on the floor of a sister church outside the city: Little Farm Church, in River Ridge, La.

They would call their effort "Camp Katrina," and dedicate themselves to this mission to help those in need.

The group includes three licensed carpenters and an architect who has recently helped to design Shaw's supermarkets throughout New England, according to Hayes. It also includes four church members who are at least 70 years old, and eight 14- and 15-year-olds who are working toward their confirmation.

Several Camp Katrina volunteers are making the trip a family affair: at least two families will be represented by three generations.

"We've been wanting to do something about the Katrina thing ever since it happened," said Shelley Alves, of Seekonk, who is making the trip with her husband, Jack, and 11-year-old daughter, Victoria. "We wanted to do something instead of just throwing money at it."

Alves said she believes that if you want to help someone, it is important that you "physically be there," if you can, to get a sense of their perspective.

Her family considered opening their home to a displaced New Orleans family, Alves said. But they didn't know how to go about it or whom to call to make that happen. And so, the family decided to wait and see what other ways they could contribute to the relief effort.

"We just feel that this needs to be done," said Alves, who said she and her husband have shared their frustration about news reports detailing the lack of government action in helping the hurricane victims.

"We're not great home-project people," Alves said of her family. "But we can take direction, and we're good at lifting and toting."

As the day of departure approached, despite many conversations with officials at the sister churches in Louisiana, Hayes still was not sure what exactly Camp Katrina members would be doing or even where they would be.

FINALLY, TWO WEEKS ago, he got word that the group could expect to be doing demolition -- tearing down moldy or deteriorated walls and unsalvageable structures that stand in the way of construction.

And last week, he learned that one of their first tasks would be to fix the roof on one parishioner's house.

Hayes, who is a professor of philosophy at the University of Rhode Island, took this semester off not only for this trip, but also for others to Haiti and to Israel.

Michael Del Rosso, of East Providence, who is a social worker at Cranston West High School, usually takes his son, Jacob, now 12, to Florida to visit his folks during school-vacation week.

Del Rosso said he was filled with pride one Sunday after church when Jacob suggested that "it would be really good if we went down and helped in New Orleans, rather than going to Florida."

He said he believes the trip will give his son an opportunity to visit new places, as the bus trip down includes a quick tour through Washington, D.C., and an overnight stop at a sister church in Richmond, Va., and the trip back next weekend includes a visit to Tougaloo College, an historically black college in Jackson, Miss. that was founded by the United Church of Christ.

Del Rosso said he hopes the experience will help his son, a Barrington Christian Academy student, "develop a sense of appreciation for what we take for granted."

"I hope to get a sense of what people down there are going through," said Del Rosso, who, as a teenager participated in a relief effort to help victims of Hurricane Gilbert in Jamaica. In watching media reports about Katrina, "I just can't even imagine.I just think, where do you start?"

DEL ROSSO also plans to serve as a courier for the Cranston West Community Service Club, during the trip South. Weeks ago, club members made contact with students from Benjamin Franklin High School, in New Orleans, and decided to help raise money for them.

They held a talent show and concert on Feb. 10 that raised $1,500, and asked Del Rosso if he would hand-deliver the check to Franklin High, which has reopened, but is not able to use its heavily damaged first floor.

Hayes said that making the trip to New Orleans seems natural for a church congregation that is well-known for its liberal views and social activism.

The United Church of Christ, nationally and locally, has a history of involvement in what Hayes calls social justice.

He said he believes the true meaning of Christianity rests in caring for others. He has been involved in the civil-rights movement, in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, and in issues such as fair housing, gay marriage and abortion rights.

The Seekonk church also has a sister affiliation with a church in Haiti, and several confirmation groups over the years have performed public service work there.

Shelley Alves, a member since grade school of Seekonk Congregational, where she had her daughter baptized, said she has always felt that the church "was part of my family." It's known as "the friendly church," she said. This is the first time in her memory that the church has opened up a "mission trip" to any parishioner who wanted to go.

Alves has some reservations about how her arthritic knees will hold up after sleeping on a church floor for a week, but she said it will be a small price to pay for the good work that the group plans to accomplish.

"I think it's going to be really heart-breaking," she said of the prospect of seeing ravaged neighborhoods in New Orleans. "Anyone would be overwhelmed by the devastation. And that's all the more reason to be there."

By the end of their first day's bus ride, and more than 12 hours on the road, the excitement of the morning was wearing thin.

"I'm just bored," said 14-year-old Hollyn Cote, of Barrington. "I just want to get to the church."

EXTRA:View more photos today of the church group's trip to Virginia, and come back each day this week for photos by Journal photographer Kris Craig and audio reports by Journal writer Karen Davis, at:

http://projo.com