Volunteer-Center
For ongoing Recovery Efforts
Mariah Furze was appointed to head up the Volunteer Taskforce by the City Council on June 20, 2006.
"The Gray Hut" at the Park is a living breathing place with caring people. ---- Mariah Furze, Amy Hardee, Flo Palumbo, Colette Eisele
as well as Molly, Cheryl, Sue, and Susan make up the team.
If you have needs that require help that could be called a "small project" (anything except a house rebuild), the Gray Hut is the place to come to.
If you have volunteers that want to help, the Gray Hut is the place to come to.
The primary purpose for the Gray Hut is matching those two needs: People that need work done --- and People that want to work.
(We will get into house rebuilds as money and materials and skilled
tradesmen become available).
Mariah
"Maria Furze" <mfurze2@hotmail.com>
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We are evolving into a three-pronged powerhouse of info, volunteers, and case management that has already begun to move forward.
Information Distribution:
We have developed a packet to give all volunteers when they register, (with signs to be ordered to go up at town checkpoints to get them to the registration site-- the 'gray building’.
We have developed a packet for the people who need whole house rebuilds and who just don't know how to begin (me).
Volunteer Coordination and Supervision:
We have a small-jobs coordinator who has already knocked off a number of jobs while working 11- hour days during the past 2 weeks.
Case Management:
Our casework manager has gone through all the case files in our possession and we have new caseworkers arriving this week and next week.
Mariah
"Maria Furze" <mfurze2@hotmail.com>
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The Gray Hut
a Pass Christian hub Building serves as volunteer center
By EMILY RANAGER SUN HERALD
PASS CHRISTIAN - To go by looks and name alone, The Gray Hut isn't much.
The small wooden building, nestled between the travel trailers that serve as the town library and a bank is, like most of its surroundings on Second Street, unobtrusive. One's eye skims over it in favor of the majestic Live oaks that line the street Hurricane Katrina otherwise wiped clean 11 months ago.
Appearances are, indeed, deceiving, for great things are happening at The Hut.
Amy Hardee, a Baptist minister from rural Hillsborough, N.C., has turned a few spiral notebooks full of the names of Pass residents seeking help rebuilding into a cross-referenced computer database that matches projects with volunteers' skills.
Hardee, who first came to Pass Christian in early September, returned nine times and is now nearing the end of a 10-week summer stay. She said it was frustrating to see so many volunteers coming in without their strengths being put to proper use.
"We had plumbers coming down and doing carpentry; they cursed every nail they hit," she said. "Then there were plumbing jobs needing doing and no one could do them. What a waste."
She said other volunteer groups came and, without a place to coordinate them and tell them what jobs to do, were unsure of how to help. With at least 100 volunteers coming in each week, there was a lot of wasted potential.
Enter The Gray Hut. Hardee and a handful of other volunteers passed the spiral notebooks around town. Residents could sign up for help. Hardee and her helpers categorized them by the type of work to be done and entered them into a database. When volunteer groups come into town, the folks at The Hut find out what types of skills they have and match them with residents. "It seemed obvious," Hardee said.
It also seems effective. Since opening The Hut in early June, volunteers have completed 114 of the 300 original projects.
Mariah Furze, The Grey Hut's volunteer coordinator and a Pass resident, said the small jobs the volunteers can get done are a big help for residents.
"For the elderly people in town who can't clean their yards, it's a huge emotional lift," she said. "The bottom line is the people. Any way we can help them, either we will, or we will find someone who will."
After concentrating on smaller jobs for the past two months, the folks at The Hut are now in the market for skilled workers so they can move to whole-house rebuilds.
(Posted on Mon, Jul. 31, 2006)
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My name is Joshua Hutchinson. I am a member of AmeriCorps St Louis, and have been working in the Grey Hut with Mariah and Amy intermittantly for a couple of months.
While at the Grey Hut, I constructed a website that attempts to attract much-needed volunteers to Pass Christian. While doing so, I heard a great deal about
your sites dedicated to Katrina. I have linked to the katrina sites on our pages, and I was wondering if you would please put a link to rebuildthepass.org on the grey hut?
Thank you,
Joshua Hutchinson