From left, Wayne Reynolds, Greg Bowman, Phyllis Richmond, Dave Kiser, Glenn Stamm and Chuck Oldanie pose for a photo in 2007 at a Habitat For Humanity project in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
SEMINOLE – While most of the attention surrounding damage in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina focused on New Orleans, many people have forgotten the damage the storm caused along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
A 35-foot storm surge destroyed homes as far as 10 miles inland, which has resulted in a massive rebuilding project that still goes on today by Habitat For Humanity.
Each year, in early November, Seminole’s Chuck Oldanie and his brother-in-law Bill Lifsey lead a contingent of veterans and nonveterans to the area to help out for a few days with one of the organization’s “blitz build” homes.
This year, Oldanie and eight others will participate Nov. 7 to 12 in conjunction with Veterans Day. Lifsey, however, will not be a part of the work this year because he is actively involved with a Jimmy Carter build along the Mekong River in Thailand.
Oldanie, a member of the Seminole Lake Rotary Club, will be joined by a number of veterans and fellow Rotarians. They include Wayne Reynolds, a Rotarian and owner of One-Hour Air Conditioning in Largo; Glenn Stamm, a veteran and a Rotarian; Pam Stamm, Richard Samay, who is Reynolds’ brother-in-law; Earl Fratus, a Rotarian and a professor at the Seminole campus of St. Petersburg College; Steinheimer, a Rotarian and owner of Seminole Business Masters; Dave Kiser, a retired engineer; and Mike Hallor, a veteran and an engineer based in Boston.
The group will team up with about 10 or 11 other volunteers to build a 1,400-square-foot, 3-bedroom home in five days at Bay St. Louis, Miss.
When complete, the keys to the house are turned over to the new owners who are generally single parents. The owners are responsible for furnishing the interior and receive a no-interest loan through Habitat For Humanity.
Oldanie’s participation dates back four years.
“The first year we went up there it was in early December and it was cold,” Oldanie recalled. “We were sleeping in tents and it was about 20 degrees with ice in the parking lot. That’s when we decided it would be better to move it back about a month and it just worked out that it was over Veterans Day.”
Helping out on Habitat projects is nothing new for Oldanie and his brother-in-law.
“I got involved through Bill (Lifsey),” said Oldanie, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “Bill and I were involved in Habitat projects in Belize and Mexico long before Bay St. Louis. And before that locally in the 1980s.”
Reynolds has been involved with Oldanie helping in Mississippi each year.
“As part of our Rotary group, we’re committed to do some good deeds,” said Reynolds. “Now, it’s more than that. It’s a dedicated thing, a great cause.”
Each year Reynolds takes a couple of employees along to familiarize them with what Habitat is all about.
“It’s a feel good thing,” he said. “We work with the people that are going to be moving into the house and get to know them. It’s a great experience.”
Oldanie, a sales associate with Weichert Realtors, said the Bay St. Louis area is slowly being rebuilt but it will be an ongoing project for Habitat.
“There were so many magnificent homes there that aren’t there any longer,” Oldanie said. “It’s slowly coming back, especially inland. It’s a neat area again. There are lots of restaurants and art galleries.”
Oldanie said when he first arrived four years ago, the area looked like a war zone. There was nothing left along the bay.
Oldanie and Lifsey, a Navy veteran, enlist a number of younger Annapolis grads for help, along with a number of veterans from this area.
“Veterans just want to help out person-to-person,” Oldanie said. “Since we’re going to probably be turning the house over to a single parent, there’s a lot of pride involved. It’s more than just recognizing and being prideful about our country,” said Oldanie. “It’s a way of taking action that would signify to another person that we want to help.”
Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit Christian organization that seeks to eliminate poverty housing throughout the world. The organization has built more than 300,000 houses worldwide and more than 80 in the Bay St. Louis area.
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