Rebuilding Hope in New Orleans is born
This August, New Orleans will observe the 20-year anniversary of the hurricane that forever changed the city and its residents on August 29, 2005. Before the waters of Katrina receded, staff and members of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church (SCAPC) were already making plans to revive their city. The seeds of Rebuilding Hope in New Orleans (RHINO), a ministry of SCAPC, were planted in Houston before the New Orleanians were even able to return home.
Hurricane Katrina ended up being the costliest natural disaster in American history, with 80% of the city under water due to the failure of the levees. The storm shut down the city for over a month while floodwaters were pumped out and infrastructure assessments were made. More than 1,300 people died in New Orleans alone. Major damage and loss of life also affected Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
Before the storm, several SCAPC staff members had evacuated to Houston. Remembering that time, former Senior Pastor Don Frampton said, “As we watched with horror what was happening in our city, we realized that relief and recovery were all we needed to do as a church.”
“As we watched with horror what was happening in our city, we realized that relief and recovery were all we needed to do as a church.” — Don Frampton
It quickly became obvious to Frampton and others that “business as usual” would no longer be possible due to Katrina’s devastation. Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston, under the leadership of the Rev. Dave Peterson, allowed SCAPC to set up offices in their basement.
“The first thing we did was check on all the members of our church. The majority were okay, and we set up email communication.” The next step, Frampton said, was to set up a system to facilitate relief work. Paul Seelman, who was SCAPC’s associate pastor at the time and now serves as pastor of Huguenot Memorial Church in Pelham, New York, was also in Houston, and his previous job as a city planner equipped him to know what was needed for recovery. “He knew how to get trucks, tools, supplies. He also came up with the name RHINO.”
The name just came to him, Seelman said. “When we started, our work was not so much about rebuilding the physical houses because some were beyond repair, but just giving hope that life could return.”
From the church basement in New Orleans, Frampton and Seelman began to contact people around the country. After conducting a session meeting over email, RHINO was born.
“Our church’s mission completely changed. We went from a full-purpose parish church to mission, mission, mission.” — Don Frampton
“Our church’s mission completely changed. We went from a full-purpose parish church to mission, mission, mission. Those words because the looping message inside my brain,” said Frampton.
About three weeks after the storm, Frampton and other staff members were able to return home to New Orleans. After a thorough assessment, they saw that the church facility was mostly okay. After that, all the pieces to set up RHINO fell into place fairly easily, Frampton said.
“We just got in and got busy. We seemed to be the first organization to start recovery efforts in the city,” said Seelman. “I’m super proud that we just went where people needed us.”
“Hurricane Katrina transformed SCAPC,” said Seelman.
Welcoming visitors
By mid-October, power mostly returned to the city, and RHINO was ready to host volunteer groups from outside the city. The first group to come in was Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church from South Carolina. SCAPC had a separate education building to house volunteers, but it wasn’t equipped with showers.
“God sent a master plumber with that first group, and they turned a storage closet into a shower room,” Frampton said.
SCAPC church members like Bonnie and Jim Hobden, who had recently retired, jumped into action. Bonnie became the chief cook, driving to Baton Rouge to get groceries on a weekly basis, while Jim drove a rental truck filled with tools. “We fed that first group for the first time on Halloween night,” said Bonnie. That was 63 days after Katrina.
Money poured into the efforts from all over the country.
Certain church-based volunteer groups are remembered as “hall of fame” worthy for their efforts in assisting RHINO, Frampton said. In addition to Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church, superstars include Webster Groves Presbyterian Church outside of St. Louis, Presbytery of Genesee Valley in New York, Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, and Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.
RHINO organizers are still especially proud that they completed a whole block of new Habitat for Humanity homes, 14 houses, at Ferry Place during 2008-2009, with a lot of help from churches across the country.
In recognition of the work done through RHINO, SCAPC received the Community Transformation Award in 2010 from the PC(USA) Mission Agency, which is now a part of the Interim Unified Agency of the PC(USA).
“RHINO never stood still,” said former board member Dave White. “Ministry coordinators Chesley, Jill, Katie, Will, Sarah, Kate, Avery, Emma, Caroline, Tim, and Savannah guided the church and the volunteers through critical challenges, changing needs, and new opportunities.”
The former directors led adult volunteers in “heavy lifting” and established Camp RHINO for teens. They also utilized social media to keep in touch with new and returning volunteers and helped respond to disasters in other cities — an innovative approach at the time.
Now the RHINO Summer Camp program is run by Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) based in New Orleans. The partnership provides valuable experience for young adults and helps the church perform its mission.
20 years after Hurricane Katrina
“During the summer of 2025, we have welcomed youth and their adult sponsors from Worthington, Ohio, and Wichita, Kansas. The teams worked with our long-time partner, Rebuilding Together, doing repair work for low-income homeowners, said SCAPC’s Associate Pastor Sarah Chancellor-Watson. “We continue the original mission of RHINO by helping families remain in their homes, combating rising housing costs, and helping neighborhoods retain their unique characteristics.”
In the last 20 years, RHINO has hosted more than 9,000 volunteers and helped countless families return to their homes.
Starting with the 2010 flooding in Nashville, RHINO board members and other volunteers from SCAPC took the knowledge they had gained and began what they called “reverse RHINO” — trips to help communities going through natural disasters. “Because so many people had come here, this was a great way to give back and share what we’d learned,” said Avery Beuerman, former RHINO director.
Over the last 15 years, RHINO and friends have helped at disaster sites from Atlanta to New York to West Virginia to the Mississippi Delta and beyond. Also, RHINO created a “how to” manual of sorts to help other communities rebuild hope in times of need.
In the last 20 years, RHINO has hosted more than 9,000 volunteers and helped countless families return to their homes. Thanks to RHINO, SCAPC has retained its missional focus, a positive legacy of a devastating storm.
“RHINO stayed relevant as the years went by. Katrina exposed deep flaws in the city, and we continue to find ways to rebuild hope,” said Beuerman.
“Katrina made us into more of a church than ever before.”— Don Frampton
The impact of RHINO on SCAPC is almost as strong as the impact of RHINO on the city of New Orleans. “No question, Katrina made us into more of a church than ever before,” Frampton said. “We really became a church then.”
This October, SCAPC will host a celebration of RHINO’s 20 years of helping rebuild hope in New Orleans and in other disaster-ravaged communities. The gathering will include participation in a Habitat build in New Orleans. For more information on the event, contact Sarah Chancellor-Watson at sarah@scapc.org.
