By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – The devastation left behind in Southeast Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 had Dale Kimball and the Louisiana Disaster Response Ministry facing a mind-boggling amount of work.
Kimball was hired as the head contractor to lead mission work from Slidell’s Aldersgate United Methodist Church, coordinating volunteers and donations pouring in from all over the country—all to help hundreds who lost their homes and had no insurance money to rebuild their lives.
“We were running 150 projects at a time, and coordinating 500 volunteers a day from Slidell, all to help the hundreds who had tremendous needs and no insurance,” Kimball said.
But nearly nine years later, Kimball said the needs are still all around us, and most people don’t know it. Today, the retired Slidell Navy veteran is still helping people and fixing problems in houses, but doing it in a more challenging way since the donations from Katrina dried up long ago—although the need for help never did.
“People don’t know there is still so much work to do,” said Kimball, continuing to work from a house next to the Aldersgate Methodist property. “There is still a staggering amount of work to do.”
Kimball’s operation changed in 2006 to become the Northshore Disaster Recovery/Epworth Project, started by Slidell’s Jim Bailey, a retired Shell Oil executive. But the mission is no different. Walk into the Epworth operation, where only four full-time people guide the work, and you will still see a huge board on the wall with 40 different repair projects underway. The list never gets smaller, Kimball said.
“We are actually still doing some Katrina work—probably about 40 to 50 homes still have Katrina damage,” he said. “But we have had new storms, particularly Hurricane Isaac. The big difference is that we didn’t get a lot of money coming in to help those people, so we have to find it ourselves through other means.”
Not only did Isaac and a few other storms the last three years add to their work load, but the tremendous reputation developed by Kimball and his small team led local fire departments and emergency agencies to contact them when they learned of a local need.
“When there is a fire and someone needs help we get called,” he said. “When police find an older woman living in a rat-infested home, we get called.”
Looking over the 2013 report for the Epworth Project makes it clear what kind of work the group is still doing. The team handled 183 projects, going as far away as Bogalusa to work. Out of that total, 126 involved home repairs, they built 21 handicapped ramps, worked in three churches, two non-profit groups and 31 mobile homes.
‘When I look at what we did in 2013 it blows my mind,” Kimball said. “But I can’t walk away. There is no second in command to learn what it took me years to learn, so I keep doing it.”
When Katrina struck the area and Kimball was recruited to leave his home improvement business, he immediately faced the task of coordinating hundreds of volunteers from around the country who wanted to come here to help. His team constructed a building that could house up to 200 people at a time, with 56 comfortable bunks to sleep in, and slowly over time, Kimball developed a system to coordinate the volunteers with the long list of work needed to be done.
And now, nearly nine years later, he is still coordinating volunteers, although having to “beat the streets” to find dollars that will enable some of the repairs to get finished.
“We still operate a one-stop shop for volunteers,” he explained. “We developed quite a reputation as a good place to come if you have people who want to volunteer. They pay us $225 to come for a week and that covers their lodging, food, tools, materials and travel to the jobs.”
Getting volunteers isn’t the biggest challenge facing Kimball, although he does his share of recruiting to keep them coming. For that matter, one team from Ohio recently put in their 80th trip coming to Slidell with a mission team.
“That’s the thing that got me energized with this work,” Kimball said. “I remember seeing many people who wanted to help. It was amazing to see. They fell in love with the people they helped, and every time I see how much people want to help others, it motivates me to keep doing this.”
But getting money for repairs has become the toughest chore for Kimball. He speaks to many non-profit groups or charitable organizations where there might be donations for their work.
“We have certain groups that keep donating and they are a huge help to us,” he said. “But now I have to seek the money out. I talk to United Way, the New Orleans Saints have helped us, a business in Chicago sent money—we have to let people know what we are doing and they have helped us with the finances.”
Kimball said he learned one little secret in the midst of coordinating volunteers. Most of those who came from out-of-town became emotionally connected to those they were helping, and frequently would go home and raise money to finish a job.
“We have seen that many times,” he said. “The volunteers want to get the job finished once they start, and they send money to us after they return home so they can be sure someone gets their job completed.”
Kimball said he usually tries to have about $7,500 lined up for each home that needs major repairs, but he admits to starting homes, knowing he didn’t have the money to finish them.
“I began to see that the volunteer teams I put on a home really cared for who they were helping, so I knew they would help us get it done, one way or another,” he added.
Kimball had a couple of experiences in his life that set him up to do disaster recovery work. He learned about giving to others when he grew up in a family with 13 children, where everything was shared.
Then when he graduated from high school, he joined the Navy since “I wanted to see the world.” Much of the work he did in the military involved humanitarian service in other countries and he began to understand how important it was to help others—wherever the need was.
His final tour in the service led him to New Orleans, where he got married and settled down, moving to the North Shore in 1996 and finding Aldersgate Methodist. Kimball had little idea at the time that he would be the person to begin directing the massive disaster recovery work many years later, following the worst natural disaster in American history.
“The real success story about what has happened here, from Katrina to now, is the people who come to volunteer from all over the country, and even from other countries,” he said. “I believe we continue getting volunteers since people see so many disasters, and fear it might be them one day.
“They are paying it forward, whether they know it or not,” he said.
As for the prospect of individuals taking advantage of the goodwill from Epworth, Kimball laughed it off.
“I’ve learned how to weed out the frauds,” he said. “The majority of the people who come to us are legitimate and need help. I tell anyone who questions that to come ride with me one day—you will see.”