Navigation Back Search
Search

Katrina work crew remembers 100 trips

By Lilla Marigza
Aug. 1, 2025 | TIPP CITY, Ohio (UM News)

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina, volunteers recall how “being the hands and feet of Christ” affected their lives while rebuilding homes in Louisiana. Video by Lilla Marigza, UM News.

E. Dwight Franklin helps with the gutting of his parents’ home in New Orleans six months after Hurricane Katrina. Virginia Tech student Ivy Gorman (background) was part of a team from her school working through the Louisiana United Methodist Storm Recovery Center during their spring vacation. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

All eyes were on the Louisiana Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. In the months and years following the Category 3 hurricane, the destruction faded from the headlines. But some United Methodist Volunteers in Mission teams didn’t stop going back to help.

For over a decade, Ginghamsburg United Methodist in Ohio was one of those churches still helping people put their lives and their homes back together.

Learn more about Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio.

Watch video documentary, “Mission Slidell,” produced by Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church.

Marigza is a multimedia producer for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.

Related Tags

Sign up for our newsletter!

Subscribe Now
Local Church
Members of Black River Falls United Methodist and community guests enjoy “Dinner Church” on March 18 at the rural Wisconsin church. The weekly ministry, which is celebrating its second anniversary, has become a place where strangers become friends and a small congregation reimagines its mission. Photo by the Rev. Thomas E. Kim, UM News.

Around the table, a church finds new life in rural Wisconsin
A small-town United Methodist church in rural Wisconsin embraces community outreach by serving meals, building relationships and redefining what it means to be church.
Local Church
(From left) Naoutane Ndecky, Senegal District women’s president, Abraham Basse, district lay president, and Eric Ané raise their hands in prayer during the dedication service at Temple Beth Shalom United Methodist Church in Diamniadio, Senegal. The ceremony marked the official inauguration of the new modern building, the result of a collective effort to provide United Methodists in the community with their own place of worship after 18 years of renting. Photo courtesy of the Senegal District.

Celebrating a new church building in Senegal
After 18 years of worshipping in rented spaces and experiencing a collapsed roof, community inaugurates Temple Beth Shalom United Methodist Church.
Disaster Relief
Richard Mushitu, the Tanganyika Episcopal Area’s Disaster Management coordinator, helps distribute bags of flour during an emergency humanitarian aid distribution organized by The United Methodist Church. The project, funded by the United Methodist Committee on Relief and local resources, provided food and essential non-food items to 700 people affected by devastating floods and forced displacement in the Nyunzu and Kalemie territories of Congo. Photo courtesy of the Disaster Management Office of the Tanganyika Episcopal Region.

Church brings aid, hope to Tanganyika
The United Methodist Church, with support from UMCOR and local resources, has provided food in the Tanganyika region, which has been challenged by devastating floods and the fallout from conflicts in eastern Congo.

United Methodist Communications is an agency of The United Methodist Church

©2026 United Methodist Communications. All Rights Reserved