New Orleans - A community devastated by Katrina celebrates a step in its recovery. Volunteers with faith based groups are rebuilding a dozen homes in the Little Woods community.
Homeowners there now starting to make their way back, for the first time since the storm. It is a celebration- in true New Orleans fashion – a welcome home for a dozen families in Little Woods, in the east.
"It's feeling wonderful," says Patricia Riddle.
Riddle and her husband, Eugene, are among those moving back to the once-colorful summer fishing camp community for the first time since Katrina.
"It look much better than what it was, it’s like the day I first bought it," says Eugene Riddle.
Rev. John McCullough with Church World Service says, "it’s a very big project I don't think there is one which is like it"
500 volunteers poured their hearts and hard work into fixing the properties. They're all with local and national faith based organizations.
"It's not only 12 homes, its 12 homes within 4 weeks," said McCullough.
Project organizers say they picked this area because it has not received enough attention. They say about half of the homes in Little Woods remain damaged and empty.
"There are a lot of people still trying to get back home around here," say Eugene Riddle.
The Riddle's say they would have never made it home, if it wasn't for all this help.
Eugene says, "When you got good people to help you, you will survive, and I was all about surviving."
"We hope this won’t be an end, but really the beginning," says Rev. McCullough. To rebuild homes and lives in this Little Woods community.
All 12 families were selected by the Crescent Alliance Recovery Effort - or "CARE."
The humanitarian agency Church World Service spear-headed the entire rebuilding project.
