Resurrection Resource Centers

INTRODUCTION
Hurricane Katrina resulted in unprecedented human tragedy from a natural disaster on US soil. The days immediately following the catastrophic hurricane were phenomenally challenging and witnessed problematic deployment of official resources to rescue and relieve the hundreds of thousands of impacted people. Networks of churches—both formal and informal—in the hurricane stricken area, as well as beyond the directly impacted Gulf Coast states, have responded by creating emergency shelters and providing emergency food and supplies to offer relief for displaced persons.

Lott Carey—an international Christian missions agency of African American Baptist heritage founded in 1897 that supports indigenous programs and personnel to engage effectively in evangelism, education, health care, and disaster response in 20 countries around the world—is coordinating the development of Resurrection Resource Centers (RRC) to help people displaced by Hurricane Katrina to rise again. RRCs will utilize the strengths of local faith communities, employ evacuees with the requisite training and experience, and deploy Lott Carey’s broad experience in building local capacity and supporting sustainable organizations to empower evacuees to begin building their lives again. The purpose of RRCs is to help persons displaced by Hurricane Katrina to “rise again.”

CONTEXT
Hurricane Katrina displaced hundreds of thousands of residents of the Gulf Coast region of the United States. Many of those evacuated are working poor or impoverished. While emergency relief efforts are providing some shelter and food, people will need a creative compliment of programs and services to augment the resources made available on a short-term basis by government agencies.

OBJECTIVES
RRCs make available information networks and empowerment programs designed:

1. To assist evacuees to access the full array of local, state, and federal resources available to them
2. To offer mental health screening and services to help evacuees address issues of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and addiction, domestic violence and the like for adults, children, and families as well as to provide coaching for more effective stress management
3. To provide pastoral counseling support to help evacuees process issues of faith and meaning
4. To aid evacuees in locating housing and making payments for security deposits, essential furnishings, utilities activation, and rental supplements
5. To ensure ongoing nutritional supplements through food distribution
6. To provide employment assistance that includes accessing proficiencies, developing resumes, literacy training, and scholarship assistance for skills training/retraining
7. To develop primary and secondary age levels after school programs to facilitate children’s successful negotiation of relocation, to help children process constructively the stressful events of Hurricane Katrina, and to identify children that may need intervention through a variety of age appropriate activities (tutoring, peer mediation training, cultural exposure, group discussions, etc.)
8. To secure free legal consultations for evacuees
9. To coach individuals and families to improve financial management
10. To launch new child care centers with special resource personnel to address children that are dealing with the trauma of the hurricane and its aftermath

A Consortium of Faith Communities Coordinated by Lott Carey
220 “I” Street, NE, Suite 220, Washington, DC 20002
202.543.3200 (Voice) 202.543.6300 (Fax)
lottcarey@lottcarey.org (Email) www.lottcarey.org (World Wide Web)

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