Key Points:
- Two years after Hurricane Ida flooded her home, Brenda Wyatt is finally on the last leg of efforts to repair it, helped by an initiative of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference called Project Restoration.
- Volunteers from Virginia spent a hot June day laying flooring in Wyatt’s basement.
- One volunteer said the work to fix the home was important, but not as important as giving people like Wyatt hope for the future.
When Brenda Wyatt got an email offering help to repair her home after it had been damaged by Hurricane Ida, she figured it was a scam.
“I wasn't sure if it was true or not, because you get so many spam emails and so many scam things,” Wyatt said in an interview June 30 in the small, tidy living room of her row home just outside Philadelphia.
“When you respond to (such an email), in the end, you end up losing something.”
But something stopped her from deleting the email. She even started filling out the application a couple of times, but got scared about all the personal information she would have to divulge.
“I did a little research through the Better Business Bureau just checking things out, and it showed that (Project Restoration) was legit,” Wyatt said.
She filed her application on the last day of the deadline.
That led to a telephone call and a visit. Wyatt finally felt reassured that the offer of help was genuine.
Project Restoration, a ministry of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, was on the case. Funded by more than $670,000 in grants from the United Methodist Committee on Relief and donations from individuals and churches, the project has led to the repair of some 20 homes damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021, with at least 40 more to come.
“Project Restoration has emerged as a community leader in supporting unmet needs,” said Katherine Hills Uzoka, interim director for U.S. disaster response at UMCOR. The relief agency also supports the ministry’s efforts through disaster case management training and technical assistance.
Daniel Jeffers, the construction project manager for Project Restoration, said he meets “a lot of definitely traumatized people who have gone through a lot.”
“A lot of these homeowners start out the project really depressed or distressed still years later, and talking about they won't enter that side of their house or (walk on) that floor,” Jeffers said.
As the work progresses, there is usually a total shift in attitude, he said.
“They say, ‘Hey, this looks really good, and I'm not scared of this place anymore and I can start using this again.’”
Dave Darcy, a volunteer from Burnt Factory United Methodist Church in Stephenson, Virginia, who was working on Wyatt’s home and another Project Restoration site, said the physical work he was doing is secondary.
“The biggest thing that we look to do when we come to the site is relationship building, providing hope,” Darcy said.
The volunteers from Burnt Factory, including church pastor the Rev. C. Steve Melester, lodged at Drexel United Methodist Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, about 15 minutes away from Collingdale.
Burnt Factory volunteer Rick Leonard said they’re going to finish the basement floor at Wyatt’s home, but added that the job's in progress.
“We still have to put in the vanity, the toilet seat, put the frame back on the door and shave the door a little bit, because now it's raised up a tad,” he said. “So, no, the job isn't done.”
But completing all the work was not the goal of the volunteers, Darcy said.
“We call it pushing a rock up the hill,” Darcy said. “So we got a couple revolutions up the hill and someone else will come in, and they'll keep pushing till we get to the summit.
“That's the value of connectionism. That's what this group is all about.”
Jeffers said some of the need for affected homeowners like Wyatt derives from the relative low value of their homes compared to those in tonier neighborhoods.
“A big aspect of what's going on here is that the national disasters are based off of financial damage,” he said. “So if a really wealthy district were to be damaged, that could be a national disaster, but a lot of Philadelphia flooded and a lot of these were cheaper row homes. There wasn't a big financial damage, so it wasn't a national disaster.”
That meant less help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and insurance companies, Jeffers said.
In cases like that, a damaged home may need more work than the home is worth.
In Wyatt’s case, her suffering was compounded when her husband, Daniel, passed away around the one-year anniversary of Ida. It was not only an emotional loss; Daniel generally handled all the household maintenance, including working on the house after it was flooded in 2021.
“Slowly but surely, I was able to get things out and my relief was grief cleaning,” she said. “Then I got the email … stating that, ‘We have availability to assist more in your area, in Delaware County.’”
With her home getting closer to being back to normal, Wyatt is mulling her future. She has worked as a home health caregiver, and may seek schooling so she can get a management job in that field.
“I have a passion for (health care), she said. “I love it, but me getting older, it's just the physicality of it (that is difficult). … You're never too old to learn.”
Wyatt now envisions a future that is “comfortable.”
“You may have some ups and downs, just some turbulences,” she said. “But you know, being where I am in my life and journey, I just want peace.
“And that's all you can ask for.”
Patterson is a UM News reporter in Nashville, Tennessee. Contact him at 615-742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Weekly Digests.
