Hurricane Katrina took a direct hit on the area around Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. To this day, families are still struggling to get into permanent housing. Many of them didn’t receive access to government funding until late in 2008, and now they are finally able to move forward. Unfortunately, the volunteer base is much smaller, as so many outside the area mistakenly assume that everything certainly should have returned to "normal" by now. Quite simply, it hasn't.

But our efforts go beyond just building homes. We are building relationships with the people of Bay St. Louis.  By giving our time, effort and financial support we are helping return their lives back to a true sense of normalcy around some basic fundamental needs that we take for granted. We all have so much, and it is such a blessing for us to give a few days of our time to benefit someone else and meet these needs.

Through the work of the DiRT Ministry, we are helping put lives back together. And it's not just the lives of those we assist who are impacted in a positive way ... it's those who choose to participate as well! Many people have gone with us on past trips having no construction skills whatsoever, but were a huge help. (And they learned at least one new skill ... another goal of the DiRT Ministry!)