Vermilion Faith Community of Care
PO Box 554   Abbeville, La.  70511
 Voice/Fax: (337) 893-5589     E-mail:   vfcc@cox.net

Uniting the faith community of Vermilion Parish in service
through meeting critical human need.

KAREN KEEVE’S “KATRINA COTTAGE:”
FIRST LOWE’S CLIENT “KATRINA COTTAGE”

First published in "ALIVE!", the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana,
 Mr. Robert Harwell, Editor, E-mail: robertharwell@centurytel.net.  Used with permission.

The first Lowe’s “Katrina Cottage” ever to be built for a client anywhere, is currently being constructed by all-volunteer crews from all over the United States, and the world, for Ms. Karen Keeve in the heart of Abbeville, the Parish Seat of Vermilion Parish.  The project is a collaborative one, involving many organizations and underwritten by funding from six different helping agencies.  The skilled carpenters and plumbers are coming primarily from rural, western Massachusetts.

The story begins with Karen, who had inherited the home from her grandmother, Ouida Batiste, who died at age 93, on Halloween, October 31, 2005; just several weeks after Hurricane Rita devastated much of southwestern Louisiana.  Karen didn’t know who to turn to for help.  Since she did not own the house at the time of the hurricane and since the succession had not been legally filed, Karen did not qualify for any of the government hurricane assistance programs.  Judy Herring of Southern Mutual Help Association (SMHA), a nonprofit organization based in New Iberia that had been working for rural recovery in south Louisiana for over thirty-five years, took up Karen’s case and advocated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help her acquire a FEMA trailer in which to live, now located on the property immediately adjacent to the construction site. 

As it so happened, SMHA had made repairs to Ouida’s house some thirty years earlier, and Lorna Bourg, the Executive Director of SMHA, had been the driving force behind that original project.  What a small world!  So it was very natural and most appropriate for SMHA to come to Karen’s aid for hurricane recovery these thirty years later.  Judy Herring and Rene Simon were supervisors of the process for SMHA and worked with Karen for some six months to help repair her home.

SMHA had recruited some volunteer carpenters from Louisiana Local Aid Project (LLAP) in western Massachusetts to repair Ouida, now Karen’s, house that had suffered severe water damage from rain, and was filled with mold and mildew.  Stan Romanowski, a Michigan native and volunteer who had wintered in south Louisiana, and Shawn Allen, a member of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Northampton, Massachusetts, were the first persons to suggest to SMHA that it would be more cost effective and would yield a “safer, smarter, stronger” home if we were to demolish the original house and build a new home from the ground up. 

Judy showed Karen a Lowe’s “Katrina Cottage” Plan Book.  Karen was excited about the possibility.  The suggestion was taken up by Rene Simon of SMHA, who worked with Shawn Allen and Andrea Broussard, the Commercial Sales Representative at Lowe’s in New Iberia over a six-week period to develop the feasibility of the project.  Andrea was very excited about the possibility of building the first client “Katrina Cottage.”  Up until now, only three have been constructed, all of them as “show houses” on Lowe’s Parking lots, two in southern Mississippi, and one in New Orleans, at the Lowe’s on Elysian Fields.

Judy Herring, of SMHA, brought the idea to Dr. James Grant, the Executive Director of Vermilion Faith Community of Care, Inc. (VFCC) in Abbeville, for us to consider collaborating on the project, which would be beyond the capabilities of any one organization to fund.  The end result of several planning meetings was an agreement reached among four helping agencies, with funding from six sources, and the client, Karen Keeve, to do the new construction of the Lowe’s “Katrina Cottage,” Model KC 612, rather than attempting a renovation of Karen’s house.

The “Katrina Cottage,” KC 612  (a 612 square-foot “Katrina Cottage”), was designed by a Miami-based architect, Andres Duany, whose firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., was called in by the Louisiana Recovery Authority to consult with Louisiana after Hurricanes Katrina & Rita in order to strategize and plan for community recovery.  The firm conducted three “charettes” in Louisiana, one for Lake Charles in Calcasieu Parish, one for three rural towns in Vermilion Parish, and one for St. Bernard Parish to assist the hurricane recovery process.  Andres Duany, who is passionate about providing affordable, high-quality, dignified and attractive homes, designed an adapted Acadian-style hurricane-resistant cottage according to the new stringent post-Katrina construction codes that had been adopted.  The basic “model” cottage was designed to be a 612 square–foot, one-or-two bedroom home that could be expanded with other cottage “units” to make a larger home.  It is a stick-built “safer, stronger, smarter” house built to the International Builders’ Codes that can withstand 140-MPH wind gusts.

One of the unique parts of the “Katrina Cottage” plan to assist recovery was that Lowe’s sells the “Katrina Cottage” as a “Material Package” which includes everything from the design plans and blueprints to all the construction materials from the foundation plate up, even including the kitchen appliances.   So the “Katrina Cottage” being constructed in Abbeville was purchased from Lowe’s in New Iberia.  All the construction plans and materials come pre-designed, developed, and packaged in five shipments to be assembled and constructed on-site.  Lowe’s in New Iberia has enthusiastically supported our project, delivering truckload after truckload of the material packages, everything from pre-formed trusses to roofing nails. 

While the project began as a SMHA “home repair” project, and so continues under their leadership for the volunteers, the project has become a “new construct” project, the first of its type, and a collaborative project of many organizations.  VFCC and SMHA led the collaborative process and recruited the United Way of Acadiana as partners.  The four organizations together, SMHA, VFCC, LLAP, and the United Way of Acadiana put together a funding package of about $38,000.00 to buy the complete “Katrina Cottage,” KC 612 package from Lowe’s.   Funding has come through VFCC from Church World Services from a grant from Habitat for Humanity.  Funding from the United Way of Acadiana has come from a grant from the Home Building Industry Disaster Relief Fund.  Both Sarah Berthelot and Mary Zaunbrecher of United Way of Acadiana have been very excited about participating in this ground-breaking (no pun intended) project.

Lowe’s does not sell concrete or air-conditioning systems, so the Lowe’s material package does not provide for the actual foundation for the house or central air / heat system.  After SMHA volunteers demolished Karen’s grandmother’s house, an SMHA volunteer crew of Mennonite builders prepared the site for new construction and poured the concrete footings and piers for the foundation itself.  The helping agencies hope to raise enough additional funds to purchase a central A/C-heat unit (2-ton) for the cottage.  If you would like to help with this part of the project, please contact the Rev. Keith L. Milligan, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Beautiful, Downtown Abbeville, and Founding Chairman of the Board of VFCC at 337-385-2195 or at keithmilligan@bellsouth.net.

LLAP, from rural, Western Massachusetts, under the leadership of Elaine Ulman, founder of the nonprofit group, whose mission is “offering relief and support to rural towns in Western Louisiana,” has recruited construction teams of skilled carpenters to build the cottage from start to finish.  They have been coming down in small groups and as individuals, some for a long weekend, some for a week, and a few, like Shawn Allen and Sue Tyler, for more extended missions.   Shawn, a veteran contractor / builder of thirty years, has provided the technical expertise for the construction and has recruited many of the carpenters from western Massachusetts. 

Supplementing the skilled workers have been unskilled volunteer crews, most made of college students on their spring breaks.  For the last several weeks, we have had five collegiate volunteer crews assist on the “Katrina Cottage.”  One week we had two crews from Indiana, from two universities that were only fifty miles apart: Ball State University in Muncie and Butler University in Indianapolis.  Two of these students that worked on the Katrina Cottage were from Teheran, Iran, and southern India.

Another crew came from Claremont University in Claremont, California.   One of these students, a Communications major, interviewed me, Chairman of the Board, Dr. James Grant, Executive Director, and Liz Touchet, Program Director, of VFCC, about the roles we have played in hurricane recovery following Hurricanes Katrina, when we supported over 1,500 Katrina evacuees in Vermilion Parish; and Rita, when we supported some of the 6,500+ of our own households that had been flooded out of their homes.

The next week we had two intercollegiate crews, one from an athletic association, and the other from an honor society.  One of these students, representing the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, Kasey Faust, hails from Anchorage, Alaska, and attends the University of Washington in Seattle.  A Civil Engineering major, Kasey had never held a hammer.  However, under the tutelage of Shawn, she and her classmate, Jenifer Pesicka, designed and constructed a very sturdy set of wooden steps up to the back door of the cottage (see their picture completing the steps).  They both took great pride in their successful accomplishment, as well they should.  Kasey had this to say about her Louisiana experience, “Aside from the carpentry skills I learned, like building steps, I learned what true strength, dedication, perseverance, and kindness is.  That is one lesson and experience that will follow me through my life.  This was a very humbling experience.”

All of the students got more than their fill of hammering, because they nailed hundreds of metal wind braces and straps and hurricane brackets to the structure.  Ben Broosley from Homewood, Illinois, added, “I was hammerin’ away, happy as an old hammerdog!” while Charlie Jenks from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky commented, “My heart was singing to the beat of the hammers!”

We have also had local volunteers help on this collaborative project.  Allen Harrison, a retired chemist who worked for Upjohn, now Pfizer, Pharmaceuticals in Michigan for thirty years, shows up every day and works all day as a way of thanking SMHA volunteers who repaired his sister’s home on Pine Street in east Abbeville, an entire suddivision that was flooded by Rita’s  second surge.  Allen’s sister, Shirley Levine, had evacuated to Michigan and lived with Allen after the hurricane.  Now, thanks to SMHA volunteers, she is back in a beautiful home.  Allen, a quiet man of very few words, is a man whose actions have spoken very loudly!

Karen’s brother, Randy Campbell, and his friend, Eric Henderson, drop by as often as their work allows, and can be seen walking on trusses and swinging hammers with the best of the pros.  Lowe’s Commercial Sales Representative, Andrea Broussard, who had sold the “Katrina Cottage” package to us, went way above the call of duty.  Her husband, Eric, an electrician, volunteered to wire the entire house on weekends when he was not at his regular job.

Karen’s grandmother, Ouida Batiste, had lived about 63 of her 93 years in the house that she had given to Karen.  The only salvageable piece of the house was the phone cabinet that had been inset within one of the walls.  Sue Tyler, a retired school teacher and volunteer carpenter from western Massachusetts, saw it on the trash pile and retrieved it.  She had an idea for this irreplaceable piece of historic furnishing.  By the way, inside the cabinet was Ouida’s original phone number: “1578 – R.”  Sue stripped nearly twenty coats of paint off that antique piece, replaced the wooden back, and refinished it with lacquer.  She wrote a note on the back and signed it, along with Shawn.  Sue then presented it as a surprise gift to Karen, who was moved to tears (see picture Karen reading the inscription).  Sue’s written, and spoken, words to Karen were these: “Thanks to Ouida for making you ‘promise’ to rebuild; and a big thank you from the volunteers to you for showing us what real hope looks like.  Glad we could be a part of your DREAM!  Wishing you the best in your new HOME!”   It will adorn her new “Katrina Cottage” as a proud heirloom and memory of her grandmother, Ouida, who made Karen “promise” to rebuild her house after the hurricane, and of the many volunteers, such as Sue and Shawn, who are making her dream come true!

Shawn is very interested in seeing that people build “sustainable and survivable” homes.  He is convinced that the Lowe’s “Katrina Cottage” is in his words, “a great, little house,” and he is highly motivated and happy to be involved in this project.  Shawn quipped, “I feel extremely lucky and blessed to be able to do this,” and added, “The fact that this is the first is just the icing on the cake!” or as we are wont to say in Acadiana, “That’s “lagniappe!”

Karen agrees with the blessing that Shawn feels.  Karen’s father, James Campbell, now deceased, had been a minister.  Karen’s mother reminded Karen that he always used to say, “Trust in God and blessings will come your way.  God may not come when you want him to, but he’s always on time.”  Karen ended by saying, “I have been blessed!”

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