Matthew 25 Disaster Ministry

October 30, 2018
We’re in Florida heading home after delivering a 16 foot Budget rental truck’s worth of disaster relief supplies to St Dominic Catholic Church in Panama City, just a few miles from Mexico Beach where Hurricane Michael came ashore. Catholic Charities of NW Florida has turned the parish into a huge relief site serving 2,000 people daily with everything from meals to the clean up supplies donated by the people of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. They were sure happy to see us when we pulled in yesterday afternoon with everything from paper towels to disinfectant to diapers to hammers and crowbars and lots of other items in short supply. Then David Champagne and I stayed to help out for a couple of hours. St. Dominic’s is itself a disaster site, losing their entire parish hall, rectory and much of the church roof. They had an outdoor mass this past weekend in front of their grotto. They have mostly pine trees in this part of Florida - well I should say they had mostly pine trees. Now they are snapped in half and laying across houses, businesses, churches and roads. Keep these folks in your prayers and be generous in donating to relief efforts.

Hurricane Michael  Disaster Relief Supply Drive  Heading for Panama City, Florida on October 30, 2018
 
Robert Gorman, CCHT Executive Director and David Champagne, Matthew 25 Volunteer from St. Charles Church, are on the road to Panama City on October 30 to deliver a 16 foot trailer full of disaster clean up supplies for the victimes of Hurricane Michael from the people of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. Thanks to all of the volunteers who particpated in this drive - especially our depots at St. Bernadette Church in Houma, Sacred Heart Church in Morgan City and the Good Samaritan Thibodaux Food Bank. Special thanks to the employees of John Deere in Thibodaux who are in the picture below helping to load the trailer; to Woody Louviere who helped organize the bulk of the supplies through St. Bernadette parish; Fr. Andre Melancon and Don Robinson of St. Bernadette Church; to Robert Gorman, Van Johnson, Agnes Bitature and Kristin Helms LaFleur of Catholic Charities staff; Jim Labit a Good Samaritan Thibodaux Food Bank volunteer; David Champagne from St. Charles Church; Kyle and Kerry Chenier from Sacred Heart parish in Morgan City who made a delivery; Dr. Sheard Ber for an especially sizable supply donation; Amanda from Nicholls State University and the several other volunteers, like Abel Orgeron, who stopped by during the day to help to load the rental truck or to drop off relief supplies. Thank you to the donors throughout the diocese who brought donations to one of the depot churches. Thank you also to those who donated to the relief effort through your online donations, anonymous contributions and to the Caillouet Land company for a generous $1,000 donation to Catholic Charities of Northwest Florida.

Click hereif you would like to donate directly to Catholic Charities of Northwest Florida for disaster relief. Click hereif you would like to donate directly to Catholic Charities USA Hurricane Michael Relief. Click hereif you would like your donation to be forwarded through  Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Houma-Thiobdaux  to Catholic Charities USA. 

October 3: Thank you note from Bishop of the Diocese of Victoria

9/18/2017  Dear (Bishop) +Shelton (Fabre):
Today a convoy rolled in from Houma-Thibodaux to Wharton, Texas! Please know of the gratitude of the people of our diocese for your generosity. As much as the material support for people who have been hurt by the floods and still are trying to recover helps us, the spiritual support that comes from knowing that people in South Louisiana gave supplies, packed supplies, drove supplies (even spending the night in Pasadena!), unpacked supplies and then drove all the way back to Louisiana is even greater. We know we are not forgotten and God is always good! God bless you all, with love and prayers, (Bishop) +Brendan (Cahill)


An intiative at Sacred Heart Parish in Cut Off called "Pack-a-Purse/Donate-a-Ditty” resulted in this collection of disaster relief personal hygiene supplies. Fr. Gregg Fratt and Fr. J.D. Matherne explain that "this was a way for our parish to aid those in Houston from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. This was to be a more wholistic approach to assisting our brothers and sisters in Houston."


September 22, 2017
Catholic Charities thanks everyone who donated to the Hurricane Harvey collection and disaster relief supply drive over the last two weeks. A team of five Matthew 25 volunteers delivered the clean-up supplies to the Diocese of Victoria, Texas on Monday. They were a godsend. They were out of everything. What we delivered was exactly what they needed. We not only brought a 24-foot, fully loaded enclosed trailer, but had to rent an additional 16 foot moving van to handle all of your donations!! See our website and Facebook page for pictures and more information. Thank you for your generosity toward the victims of Hurricane Harvey in the previous second collection and the supply drive and thank you for your contributions in the second collection this weekend for Hurricane Irma relief. 

 The proceeds of the collection will be used both to support the humanitarian and recovery efforts of Catholic Charities USA and to provide pastoral and rebuilding support to impacted dioceses through the USCCB.  

To donate directly to a local Florida Catholic Charities agency click here or directly to Catholic Charities USA click here. If you think that two speical collections and one special relief supply drive in one month is too much, just think about how exhausted you would be and how much you would have spent if Harvey, Irma or Maria had landed in our diocese!!

Bishop Fabre has already wired $5,000 to Bishop Bevard of the Diocese of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. They were heavily impacted by Hurricane Irma and now Hurricane Maria is heading their way.

September 18: Almost home tonight with great Mt. 25 volunteers Gillis Gautreaux, Tommy Thomassie, Abel Orgeron, and Woody Louviere after delivering disaster relief supplies to Holy Family Catholic Church in Wharton, Texas this morning - the depot for all of the Diocese of Victoria. Even we were surprised by the amount of supplies once we unloaded them in the Life Center. People had been waiting for our arrival and supplies were distributed as we unloaded them and didn't even seem to make a dent in our mountain of items. The volunteers at the parish were excited and grateful that we brought only what they needed. And they had been out of everything and needed everything we brought!! Thank you again donors from Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux!!!
 

How many Cajuns does it take to change a tire? Apparently at least 5! We had a blowout on the way to Texas with the 24 foot trailer fully loaded. Managed to get to the side of the road, but then had to figure out how to lift a fully loaded huge trailer... Luckily Gillis had a ramp to lift the back tire, but the blowout was still too close to the ground to mount the spare. A regular car jack would not be nearly powerful enough. Tommy added some wood to raise the lift, I suggested letting some air out of the spare and Woody figured out how to get the air pump to work, but it was really slow. Gillis and Tommy pushed on the partially deflated spare to work it into place and I kicked it onto the rim. Just as we completed all those steps Abel asked why we didn't just raise the trailer by extending the tongue jack for that extra inch that we needed...

Then we drove the rental truck like we were in the Indy 500 to reach the tire place and arrived 5 minutes before it closed and got a new spare mounted. All turned out well!

• Announce in church that you are ready to reach out with hospitality and caring to evacuees coming into our diocese to stay with family, friends or in hotels. Matthew 25 volunteers can offer support to these families by, for example, doing laundry, delivering meals, babysitting, gathering supplies, etc. Catholic Charities stands ready to support your Matthew 25 volunteers – just call us.
• Catholic Charities of Southwest Louisiana in the Diocese of Lake Charles is helping both Beaumont and Louisiana flood victims. Click here for ways to help.
• The Texas Catholic Conference of  Bishops lists contact information for each impacted diocese. Click here.
• Donate to the Catholic Charities USA disaster relief fund: click here.  Or text CCUSADISASTER to 71777 or call 1-800-919-9338 or mail to Catholic Charities USA PO Box 17066 Baltimore, MD 21297-1066 and put "Hurricane Harvey" in the memo line of your check. Funds raised will go towards Catholic Charities agencies' efforts to assist families and individuals with shelter, food and other immediate and long-term recovery needs.

The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux has, over the years, received millions of dollars in grants from the Catholic Charities USA disaster  fund to help families in our diocese recover from storms. 

May 25, 2017

A final donation of $9,572.61 from donations collected from throughout the United States has been sent to Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge for their continued flood relief work.


10/27/2016

Margie Duplantis (center), Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, presents a check for $13,000 to Stephanie Bernard (right) and Karol Menard (left) Diocese of Lafayette for on-going August flood relief work.  They continue to clean out houses and have begun forming a Long Term Recovery Committee. They are also providing grants to Catholic parishes in the Diocese of Lafayetter to assist people with the purchase of household goods and home repairs.

An additional donation of $5,126 has been sent to Catholic Charities of Southwest Louisiana for flood relief work in their diocese. They have purchased cleaning supplies, personal hygiene items, clothing and food. They are now in the process of helping families in the Cameron and Jennings areas purchase appliances. They are also engaged with the Long Term Recovery Committee formation.

This follows the distribution of $30,000 to Catholic Charities Diocese of Baton Rouge last month plus an additional $3,000 paid to the clean out crew for flooded diocesan employees.

Thank you for these donations from around the country totalling $60,699, all of which has now been distributed.




Click Here: Recovery Report from Catholic Charities Baton Rouge

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Matthew 25 is the church parish disaster response program for our diocese. Catholic Charities is assisting in bringing together the many talents and resources that church parishes demonstrated after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to organize and integrate volunteer response teams in the event of future disasters. Together, the parish volunteer coordinators and team members are developing a more detailed plan for giving primary assistance, followup care to disaster victims, and disaster preparedness for their church parishioners.