Down Easters return South to help Katrina victim

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EAST MACHIAS – In October, Jeannie Voss had moved out of her Kenner, La., home in suburban New Orleans because of flood damage from the devastating Hurricane Katrina.

Near her home Voss met four men from Down East Maine who were wrapping up an aid mission in the area.

She politely asked how they were doing.

“No,” they said, “how are you doing?”

She invited them to see her house, wrecked by 5 feet of water.

While Voss stayed with relatives, the four men spent the next two days pulling apart her kitchen and readying the rest of the house for an overhaul.

They promised they would be back at Christmas.

They are keeping their promise, and they have assembled a Down East army to help them do it.

Tony Maker of Machiasport, principal at Elm Street School and a deacon at Larrabee Baptist Church in Machiasport, and Ralph Ackley Jr., an educational technician at the school who ministers in the River of God Church in Machias, expect to leave today for New Orleans.

They will join 15 other Machias-area adults for a week, giving the Voss home an extreme makeover, Down East-style. Eight of them left last week, driving a camper and two trucks filled with tools, supplies and household appliances.

“This woman thinks we are just coming to put up drywall and paint rooms,” Maker said.

“She doesn’t know that she’s getting everything else, too – a shower and bathtub, washer and dryer, kitchen cabinets, refrigerator, stove, microwave, sofa, loveseat, recliner and two beds.”

That stems from what happened after Maker and Ackley returned this fall.

They told and retold their story, and their presentations at area churches resulted in a much larger group traveling back.

A widow with no homeowner’s insurance, Voss will not be allowed near the house while the interior work takes place over four days. The women in the group will take Voss shopping for kitchen and bathroom items. On the last day, the group will give Voss her keys back – and give her the grand tour.

The group will stay at an area church. The church members there will help the group distribute more than 100 shoeboxes filled with household items, decorated for Christmas and intended for New Orleans-area families. The shoebox gifts were the work of many school and Sunday school children Down East.

On Wednesday evening, Nancy Sprague, who is the food service manager at Elm Street, will prepare seafood chowder for 50 people.

Cutler fishermen donated 50 pounds of lobster.

“We are bringing Down East Maine to the bayou,” Maker said

Those making the trip south include Maker and Ackley, plus Fred Stone of Whitefield; Tim Hatt of Machias; and, from Machiasport, Bill Holmes, Janelle and Gary Look, and Heather and Wesley Graham and their two children, Skyler, 8, and River, 5. Also traveling are Nancy and Mark Sprague and Kris Larsen, all of East Machias.

Paula Maker and Amy Ackley, the wives of the group’s leaders, are going, as well as Josiah Porter of Whiting, and Scott Jordan and Meghan Sprague, a teenager who will look after the Grahams’ children while they work.

Holmes and Porter were the two other Down East men who spent four days in the area in October.

Six Down East churches are represented by the current group.

Once back home, the group’s work will be repeated locally.

Maker and Ackley have started a nonprofit organization called Hands and Feet Downeast.

They want to take the lessons they have learned in Louisiana and respond to the household repair and rebuilding needs in Washington County.

“We want to be available here year-round,” Maker said. “With the barn-raising mentality, we can do so much more together than alone.

“The churches are supposed to be the first line of defense for families that need help, not the government. We want to get back to that way of thinking.”

Maker was motivated to head for Louisiana the first time after he learned about mission opportunities online. The first group was gone Oct. 5-9.

Maker called the school on his cell phone on three of the days to make Elm Street’s morning announcements – live from Louisiana.

This time, Maker and Ackley will have stories and photos to share for a school assembly in early January.

They set an initial goal of raising $10,000 toward the second trip, but have more than exceeded that much in local donations. Money that goes unused in Louisiana will serve as seed money for the Washington Country projects as Hands and Feet Downeast goes to work locally.

This week’s project in Kenner provides a training ground for the team that will work as Hands and Feet Downeast.

“First, we get to finish what we started in October,” Maker said. “It also gives us the confidence to know that, if we can fix a house in Louisiana in four days, what project can’t we accomplish in our own backyard?”

For information, contact Tony Maker at 255-6038 or Ralph Ackley at 255-6369. The e-mail address is handsandfeetdowneast@hotmail.com. Tax-deductible contributions for the group’s work in Washington County may be sent to Hands and Feet Downeast, P.O. Box 13, Machiasport 04655.