BY Aly Davis

Contributing Writer

LAPLACE – For many living in St. John the Baptist Parish, the extent of Hurricane Isaac’s damage was not only shocking but unexpected. Though Isaac hit Louisiana more than one month ago, efforts to clean up homes, businesses and streets are ongoing. For the month following the hurricane, men and women wearing yellow shirts with the Mormon Helping Hands logo could be found throughout the community removing furniture, sheetrock, insulation and carpet from homes or sawing fallen tree branches.

The Mormon Helping Hands, part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disaster relief program, began in 1998 in South America and has since spread throughout the world. The Helping Hands have been seen in the area following other natural disasters, most notably after Hurricane Katrina. Volunteers with the Helping Hands “work free of charge, providing all tools and equipment necessary to complete the work,” explained Martha Mckay, director of public affairs for the LDS Church in the New Orleans area.

Following the storm, flyers asking that those needing assistance call the Metairie LDS Church building located at 5025 Cleveland Place were distributed in the areas with most damage. To ensure that every person who called spoke with a concerned community member, men and women took three-hour shifts answering phones. On the weekends, tents serving as temporary homes for those who had come to help covered the grass beside the building.

As soon as the LDS chapel on 15 Palmetto Drive in LaPlace had been gutted, the building served as headquarters for workers in St. John Parish, where volunteers received assignments and the tools necessary to complete those assignments. Full-time missionaries, young men and women who give 18 months to two years of their time to teach and serve, began working within three days of the storm. Helping Hands volunteers from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana continued work through Sept. 30. In St. John Parish alone, 2,088 volunteers contributed 27,168 man hours to complete 861 work orders. In addition, volunteers distributed 10,237 hygiene kits, 3, 376 cleaning kits, and 330 food boxes which feed four for two days.

Michael Davis wore the yellow Helping Hands shirt with pride while helping men and women he had never met.

He said, “One experience we had was with a young family — a husband and a wife that had three young children. The children were so young that they couldn’t really help with the cleanup. This husband and wife . . . had been working on [the house] for days and days and days, but just because they didn’t have a lot of help they were not able to get very much done. So we were able to come in and in one day finish the entire house for them. They were literally in tears as they explained that they couldn’t have done it without us.”