Jimmy has traveled a few times to New Orleans & Waveland Mississippi to help with clean-up and rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. He wrote this article that was published in the Memphis Newspaper THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL. This is his article published March 9, 2007:
This past December 1st through 3rd, members of the Collierville Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church, www.mormon.org) traveled to New Orleans to participate in volunteer work to repair homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. This group of three men and one youth left Memphis on Friday evening around 6pm, traveled all evening and got to the New Orleans about 1am. That night they slept on the floor of a local church build, then got up bright and early and went to work. They were assigned to a job site about 15 minutes south of the city to repair the roof of the home of Lois Harris, a member of the local LDS congregation. The front and back of the roof over her garage was damaged and has been protected only by a tarp for the last year.
The work crew, which also consisted of Michael Logan from Cordova, worked all day Saturday and most the day Sunday putting a new layer of shingles over the entire roof. The crew hit several snags along the way including two long and frustrating trips to Home Depot and by dusk Saturday night they thought it highly unlikely that they would complete the project by Sunday. But they had some divine help, including a delicious lunch from Lois Harris and on Sunday morning a second crew of roofers (from Little Rock and also part of the LDS Church volunteer work crews) really sped things up. They finished the roof around 4pm on Sunday afternoon and headed back to Memphis that night, getting home to Collierville around 10pm.
The Collierville crew consisted of Jimmy Smith, Doug Hipp, Mike Roland and Daniel Roland, and a total of about 25 members of the LDS church from the Memphis area went and help in the reconstruction efforts that weekend. Other than some sore muscles and scrapes, there were luckily no injuries to report; all involved, in fact, felt very blessed to have been able to help others in need.
2 comments:
What a neat opportunity to help rebuild after the hurricane. I couldn't imagine going through something like that, but it is reassuring to know that as members of the Church we will always have help and aid from other members.
Way to go Jimmy! What a great missionary article!
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