My 75 year old mother resided in a Cape Cod style house in Lakeview in August 2005. She had lived in that house for more than forty years. Saturday morning, August 27, 2005, was calm and dry. However, after listening to weather reports about Hurricane Katrina churning northward in the Gulf of Mexico, my mother decided to evacuate and drive to my sister\'s house near Lafayette, Louisiana. Packing a suitcase with several changes of clothes, my mother expected to visit my sister for a few days. My husband stopped by my mother\'s house to assist her, after delivering a load of shirts to a dry cleaner in Lakeview. My mother entrusted her photos and a few other priceless possessions to my husband for safekeeping. Expecting to pick his clothes up in a few days, my husband never saw his shirts again! The Lakeview dry cleaner flooded as well as most, if not all, of the buildings in Lakeview, as a result of Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches.\r\n Little did my mother know that she would never again live in Lakeview and that her brief stay at my sister\'s house would extend to six months. My mother\'s house flooded to the ceiling, water gushing from the breach in the 17th Street Canal levee. The flood water stagnated in her house for weeks. In addition to the flooding, vandals ransacked the house, stealing anything of value remaining after the flood waters receded. Family and friends, wearing gauze masks and thick gloves and armed with flashlights, assisted over the months, salvaging what they could in the dark, stench filled house. No electricity and no neighbors - the silence was overpowering and safety was a concern. A neighbor had died in her attic, her house marked with an \"X,\" a constant reminder of the horrors of the storm. My mother\'s house overflowed with moldy, mildewed clothes, shattered household items, broken furniture, and yellowed, still damp papers. The black water line remained clearly visible near the ceiling, a stark reminder of what had been. The clean up of this flooded vandalized house was truly an overwhelming task.\r\n Through the Beacon of Hope, an invaluable nonprofit agency founded after Katrina to assist Lakeview residents in rebuilding their lives, my mother learned of church groups assisting homeowners clean up their ravaged houses. My mother was put in contact with a Methodist church in Luling that arranged for a Methodist church group from North Carolina to \"gut\" her house. That truly selfless and caring Methodist church group spent days gutting and cleaning up my mother\'s house and salvaging any object that remained to be saved. The church group was so kind and generous, asking nothing in return. Their efforts so impressed construction workers in the neighborhood that the construction workers volunteered their equipment to assist the church group in the cleanup. These hard working people traveled from North Carolina at their own expense and were sheltered and fed by the Methodist church in Luling. They left their jobs and families in North Carolina to render assistance to the needy in New Orleans. Our family will never forget what this church group did for our family in our time of crisis. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to these truly Christian people who provided such indispensable and appreciated service to the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. My grateful mother still corresponds with a church member who never fails to send a Christmas card, still interested in my mother who now resides in St. Tammany Parish. Without the assistance of the Beacon of Hope and church groups from all over the country who unselfishly volunteered their time and efforts, the recovery in New Orleans would have been much slower. The City of New Orleans owes a great debt to the church groups who helped in the rebuilding of the city.