A Ministry to Residents and Volunteers

How it Started in Waveland

In December 2005, a local resident came to the Shoreline Park Baptist Church volunteer camp in Bay Saint Louis, MS to ask for help.  She told me that she had watched as 8 dump trucks hauled her home away.  Now she has an empty lot and a trailer, but no place to store her belongings.  She asked if we could help her build a storage shed. After she left I discussed the request with our team and the fact that anyone with a FEMA trailer would have the same problem.  We agreed that we needed to do something to help.  Conrad Velasco, a volunteer in Pearlington, MS was already building storage containers so we visited him, modified his design slightly and opened the application process.  We began building sheds and soon involved churches all over America who provided money, materials, and volunteers. When we ended the program in Mississippi, over 700 sheds had been built through ministries in Waveland/Bay Saint Louis.

Building Sheds In Alabama

When people face the loss of their home, as they have from the devastating tornadoes in Alabama or the Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi, they try to save whatever they can of their life before the storm.  The problem is, what to do with it once they find it.  Providing small sheds for them to store what they can is a wonderful way to provide a relatively secure place.  It isn't a perfect solution, but it is adequate for the immediate need.  The sheds are distributed through local churches using volunteers from those churches to build and deliver them.

How Did the Program Work?

To assemble and distribute the sheds, Pathfinder Mission partnered with Westmont Baptist Church in Pleasant Grove, AL, near Tuscaloosa, Santuck Baptist Church, santuck Alabama and Eclectic United Methodist Church in Eclectic, Alabama. Each church provided the names of the disaster survivors, space to assemble the sheds and help to deliver them to the residents. Pathfinder raised the funds to pay for the sheds, provided the tools and shed materials.

The sheds were started as prefabs in Eclectic where wooden parts were cut and assembled into four prefab components.  We used volunteers to help both with cutting and assembling the prefabs. We prefer adults for this phase because of the power tolls we are using.

For Pleasant Grove residents we shipped the prefabs and metal to Westmont BC were they were staged for assembly.  We needed volunteers to do this and used both teenagers or adults for the assembly and delivery.

Who Qualifies for a Shed?

To qualify for a shed the resident must complete an application with Westmont and demonstrate that they were residents, they have registered with FEMA, they lived on the property before the tornado (a copy of their drivers license is good), and that they don't already have a shed, either from us or one purchased.  Of course there are always exceptions ... exception decisions are made by the local pastors. 

Pathfinder Mission

 P.O. Box 240185, Eclectic, AL 36024

Email Us or Phone: 228-493-1272

Subscribe to Pathfinder Mission BLOG by Email