Storm Recovery

The Recovery Continues

Soon after Katrina struck our church and city, we began to work closely with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) to serve the immense needs of our devastated community. Rayne was among many area churches who, for more than three years,  hosted volunteers from churches across the country. Volunteers were assigned to work sites in the city where families are given the critical assistance they need to rebuild their homes and lives. We are deeply indebted to those men, women, young adults, and youth from churches across the country who streamed into our city for years, slept on church floors, worked long, hot hours, and embodied the hope that helped us to rise up and begin again.

UMCOR is the humanitarian relief and development arm of the United Methodist Church and a unit of the church’s global mission organization. UMCOR’s specialty in long-term disaster response is case management—the whole spectrum of listening, documenting, connecting survivors with services, assisting them to make individual action plans, and leading all toward self-sufficiency and recovery.  UMCOR is among the first responders to arrive on the scene at a disaster and among the last to leave.  UMCOR currently is at work aiding victims of "super storm" Hurricane Sandy.   For more about this important work, visit the UMCOR website. Gifts to support UMCOR may be made through Rayne or online at their web-site.