Church, hit by Katrina, cleans up someone else’s property

New Orleans, LA >> Many of their homes are still unlivable, and their church building is planned for demolition to make way for a new one. But that hasn’t stopped the members of Lakeview Christian Center from serving their community in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One evening in late June, a cleanup team of more than 40 people from the church caravanned to their local police department (where, eleven months after the storm, traffic signals still don’t work) and blitzed the station grounds with lawnmowers and weed-whackers. Read on to see photos and find out why a volunteer coordinator called the evening “the best in my post-Katrina world”…

Click on photos to enlarge

“Our church has been aiding the Beacon of Hope [a local organization dedicated to cleaning up their area of New Orleans] since March, sending folks out just about every weekend,” says Erik Schmaltz, on staff at Lakeview Christian Center. “Each of the Covenant Groups as well as The Pivot (our college ministry) and the youth group has taken weekends to go out and offer their time and energy to serve the community. We’ve probably had 250 to 300 folks from our church (which is having about 450 people meeting on Saturdays for our services) that have gone out at least once to help the Beacon of Hope—some people go out almost every week.”

And what’s with the neon green t-shirts? “We wear matching t-shirts when we volunteer because we wanted some way for the folks in the community to identify the folks from LCC who were serving Beacon of Hope. The fluorescent green shirts have done just what we hoped they’d do. Whenever we wear them, people in the community know we are from the neighborhood church. It’s a great testimony of the Lord’s goodness to give us a means of reaching out to the community that he has placed us in, even without a building to use to minister to them. What grace!!”

On June 27, 46 people (including kids) from Lakeview Christian Center volunteered with Beacon of Hope to clean up their local police department. The next day, Beacon of Hope volunteer coordinator Sharon Leidenheimer sent a letter to the church, which she gave us permission to publish. We thought we’d let her tell the story…

Last night was one of the best evenings of my life. Certainly it was the best in my post-Katrina world. Are you wondering why?

On Friday, June 20, we had a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the first satellite of the Beacon of Hope Resource Center at the corner of Canal and Florida Boulevards in New Orleans. At that time, I spoke at length with Sgt. Doug Eckert of the 3rd District NOPD [New Orleans Police Department]. He told me how much our cleaning up neighborhoods means to the police officers, and that they get to drive past something that looks clean and neat for a change. Then he said, “In our off time, we try to clean up the grounds around our station.” Immediately I interrupted him, “Sgt. Eckert, STOP! We want you guys out fighting crime! I’m bringing a group over to take care of the grounds.” I called out to Pete Schefferstein, the administrator of Lakeview Christian Center (LCC), and asked him to join us. LCC has been the main source of volunteers with the Friends of New Orleans, as we work through the Beacon of Hope, clearing yards of debris and vegetation. Pete agreed to ask the pastor to encourage the congregation at their next worship service to participate in a cleanup. We set the date for Tuesday, June 27, from 5–8 p.m. Sgt. Eckert said he would lead a caravan from the new Beacon satellite to 3rd District headquarters on Moss Street on Bayou St. John.

I got to the NOPD 3rd District early to set up, with a truckload of rakes, brooms, shovels, safety vests and goggles, gloves, and trash bags. I asked the volunteers to bring gas-powered tools. (We still don’t have electricity everywhere...even the traffic signals all around the station don’t work!)

At 4:50 p.m., Denny Meyer showed up to volunteer. He said he’d driven past the meeting location, but no one was there. Outwardly, I smiled, signed him in, and put him to work. Inwardly, I feared, “No one is coming?!” And then I heard sirens, and I saw a caravan of 24 cars, led by Sgt. Eckert and tailed by another police car, snake along the bayou! I grabbed a push broom, stood sentry at the gate, and saluted the joyous, smiling occupants of each car as they entered the compound. Eventually, 46 volunteers arrived.

They immediately got to work picking up every bit of debris, trimming trees and shrubs, edging every sidewalk, weed-whacking around every building, both inside the fenced-in compound and along the sidewalk and street on the outside. Every weed was either pulled, weed-whacked or mowed. Lawn mowers hummed for three hours. Chain saws whirred away. Action, smiles, and joy resonated everywhere. “Y’all have only been here 53 minutes, and look what’s been accomplished!” Sgt. Eckert said to me. The transformation was amazing. People had to keep restringing weed-whackers, refilling gas tanks, and finding more trash bags. We completely filled a dumpster. One of the volunteers then jumped up in it and started compacting stuff so we could get more in! Children as young as 4 years old eagerly completed any assignment given them.

All the participants were so grateful to be able to say “thank you” to our police officers, and this was an obvious way to show it.

I’m not good at measuring distances, but I’ll make a wild guess that we handled about three acres. On that acreage stand the old flooded-out station house, the current double FEMA trailer station house, the SWAT trailers, and two other flooded-out buildings.

As it was getting close to 8 p.m., I called all the volunteers in so that Sgt. Eckert could speak to us and so that Pastor Davidson could end with a prayer. Sgt. Eckert said, “You don’t know how much this means to us. First that you support and appreciate us is important to everyone. More importantly, we drive our beats every day in this torn-up and beaten-down city. Then we go to our Katrina-devastated homes, or FEMA trailers, or to someone else’s home. Then we come to work in this devastated station. Now, our workplace has become a haven, an oasis. Thank you so much.”

Pastor Davidson’s prayer was one of gratitude to God for allowing all of us to find a way to serve Him and to continue to show us the way to make His Word known in our lives and in this city.

A glorious sunset over the bayou was the “Amen.”

Sharon Leidenheimer
Volunteer Coordinator
The Beacon of Hope Resource Center

You can see more photos of the police department cleanup at Lakeview Christian Center’s photo page.