Lutheran Disaster Response - US Virgin Islands

The Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR) Volunteer Rebuilding program on St Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands continues rebuilding homes and restoring hope for the most vulnerable citizens.  December 2019 marked our 18th month of hosting volunteer construction teams.   In that time we have worked on 64 houses.  Our primary work is roofing, everything from stopping leaks to replacing sheathing to building entire new roofs.  We continue to prioritize the homes of low income senior citizens and persons with disabilities who are living in their hurricane damaged homes.  We do not stop at roofing.  Our construction motto is "safe and dry and sanitary and functional".  To carry this out, we replace doors and windows, build steps and wheelchair ramps and make sure there is a functioning bathroom and kitchen.  Our volunteers provide the labor and through the generosity of GlobalGiving donors we help pay for the building materials.

During a recent Last Nail House Blessing Service, a church sister of the homeowner told the volunteers that before LDR came, the homeowner had given up that anyone was going to help her. For two years this elderly lady lived in a house that couldn’t be locked, with limited electricity, getting wet each time it rained.  Lots of people came, measured her house and promised help, and she never saw them again.  We kept our promise to her and today she is in a rebuilt home.  This house lost its roof in hurricanes Hugo (1989) and Maria (2017).  We changed the design of the roof, raised the pitch, used stronger materials and securely anchored the roof to the walls.  We do not want her to lose a roof again.

Since we began recruiting volunteers we have had 840 volunteers of whom 589 worked with us for at least two weeks.  They have come in 54 different groups.  Combined, our rebuilding volunteers have put in 50,268 hours of labor.

As of November 2019, FEMA stopped the invitational travel assistance for volunteer builders.  That was a benefit whereby FEMA provided airfare and a per diem for our volunteers.  Since then volunteers have come on their own or through assistance we have been able to put together from various sources.  Without the FEMA assistance it has been harder to recruit teams as there are so many other areas that need rebuilding that are less expensive to get to.  However, we are perservering.  

 Presently we are recruiting volunteer teams for the first half of 2020.   We have one hundred homeowners in our queue who have asked us for assistance so lots of critical work remains to be done.  We frequently get new requests for assistance.  

Use of Funds:  GlobalGiving funds are used to buy building materials.  Most of the homeowners we help do not have enough funds to even pay for their materials.  We use the GlobalGiving funds to supplement what the homeowner is able to contribute and even pay for all the costs of repair when necessary.