CAMERON – In the time since Hurricane Rita devastated the Cameron coast and other areas of Southwest Louisiana, many groups and individuals from around the country have made the journey here to provide aid and comfort to those in need and help them rebuild their lives and property. One such group from St. Michael Catholic Church in Sioux Falls, S.D., has returned year after year.
The week-long summer sojourn by the 40 youth and 15 adults this year was the fifth, according to Rhonda Kelsey, youth director for St. Michael Church. The group was in Cameron during the first week of Hurricane Season.
“This year’s trip combined youth from St. Michael’s and St. Mary’s,” Kelsey said. “Over the five years we have probably brought about 150 kids down here.”
Kelsey said she first became aware of the needs of the area after the storm through Catholic Charities.
“I read on Catholic Charities where Denise Donahoe had posted a need for religious education supplies because they had lost everything in the parishes affected by the storm,” Kelsey continued. “ After contacting her, because we wanted to help with that need, we decided that we didn’t want to just send money, although we did do that.”
She decided that the something they wanted to do would be a hands-on trip.
“That first year we came down and did Vacation Bible School at St. Mary of the Lake in Big Lake,” Kelsey said. “Then we had other people – adults - who wanted to come down to Cameron to see what they could do.
“We connected with Sandy Gay, the director of the diocesan office of Disaster Preparedness and Response and then with Julie Burleigh in Cameron Parish and have been working with her ever since,’ she continued.
The young people and their adult guardians, who had spent a long day of helping out in lower Cameron Parish on June 1, were unexpected attendees at the Votive Mass to Avert Storms celebrated by Bishop Glen John Provost at Our Lady Star of the Sea.
“I, every once in a while, look at the Cameron Pilot and I saw the bishop was going to do Mass,” Kelsey said. “I first thought that it was at the end of the day and our attire wouldn’t be Mass attire. Then my second thought was that it was a chance to receive the Eucharist and that overshadowed my first thoughts. We were humbled to be there and I think it was a very important thing for the kids to say that they had celebrated the Mass with the bishop of this diocese and prayed with the people of the diocese that the storms wouldn’t come and cause any more damage.”
Kelsey said they will continue to return and help “as long as they still have work and by the grace of God. Every year we have done something that I find really uplifting.
“Before we come down I show them a slide show from previous years, then after the first day, when we get back to where we are staying (this year at Saint Katharine Drexel Conference Center at Saint Charles Center), we show them the images again. It makes more sense to them then, after they’ve seen it themselves.
“One of the great images is Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Creole,” she continued. “We saw it as it was after the storm and then to see it as it is today, it is wonderful.”
Kelsey said she feels the stories the people tell the children about the storms help them and they go home with more of a sense of thankfulness and a realization that they are stronger than the thought.
