Backstory: Post-Katrina charity starts with a home

Eighteen candles will adorn the birthday cake, but Glenn Locklin won't be there to see his oldest daughter make a wish. Instead, he'll be standing on a muddy patch of land 500 miles away, making dreams come true for another family, rebuilding hurricane-ravaged lives while putting his own life on hold. With great love comes great sacrifice – one he's made without question. His wife and daughters make their own sacrifice. And so it goes for families all over the country, separated not by Katrina's wrath, but by the compassion that grew in her wake.

Mr. Locklin, a burly, soft-spoken contractor from Tennessee and project manager for the charity organization One House at a Time, has been in Pearlington, Miss., since January 2006, leaving his wife, three teenage girls, and a thriving business to fulfill what he says is his Christian duty: rebuilding homes in the rural town, population 1,684 before the storm, hovering around half that now. No tax base remains, just 200 square miles of blacktop snaking through wooded scrubland bejeweled with Spanish moss. Many residents are elderly. Nearly a third are disabled. Strong hands like Locklin's have been vital to recovery. He works seven days a week, 10 hours a day. Every two months, he goes home for a visit. No matter how hard it gets, he returns.

He's not alone. State officials estimate as many as 500,000 people have come to provide hands-on assistance since Katrina. The federal government has provided relief money – some $26 billion to Mississippi alone – but it's the hearts and hands of everyday people that are putting storm-torn lives back together.

Kris Locklin, Glenn's wife, says the family is committed to the cause, even more so after spending Thanksgiving here and seeing the devastation – and progress – firsthand. Still, it's hard. Discipline and grade problems have surfaced at home. Their middle daughter is transitioning from home schooling to her freshman year in public high school. Their 12-year-old is struggling emotionally. As for Mrs. Locklin, she's given up a lot of things she used to enjoy because there's not enough time. Always fiercely independent, she's become more so, learning to repair the lawn mower and toilet. The family goes on, which is both reassuring and painful.

"He comes home and feels like he doesn't belong here because we've developed our own system without him," she says. "He goes back down there and feels like he doesn't belong because he doesn't. I listen to him cry on the phone, and I can't comfort him. Those are the hardest times."

And yet he says he has no choice but to be here. "When I got down here, it changed everything," he says. "It got personal. I know these families. I know the circumstances. I know the pain. The main goal is to get them back in their homes."

So far, his group – a charity run by the Hope Center Fellowship church in Hendersonville, Tenn. – has completed 16 houses. They are humble, 1,200-square-foot cottages that can be constructed from the ground up in less than a month. It takes about 60 volunteers and $30,000 to complete one house. At the moment, Locklin has the hands but lacks the funds. He trades and borrows materials from other volunteer groups – some 45 relief organizations in a local coalition that share resources and information. While Locklin waits for donations to trickle in, he renovates houses that were damaged and finishes projects on houses they've already built.

The experience has changed him. "I used to always want – go to Wal-Mart and buy stupid things," he says. "It's taught me how to live better, but it's also very satisfying to help people."

***

Page: 1 | 2