Bayou Community Foundation celebrates completion of 8th home built for Hurricane Ida survivors in Dulac

Bayou Community Foundation, Holy Family Catholic Church, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux along with other project partners welcomed Hurricane Ida survivors Wayne and Angela Solet and family to their new home in Dulac nearly a year since the family lost everything in the Category four storm.

The storm-resilient house along Grand Caillou in the bayou community of coastal Terrebonne Parish is the eighth new home completed so far by the volunteers of Pennsylvania-based Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Storm Aid as part of Bayou Community Foundation’s Bayou Recovery Fund housing efforts.

From January to June of this year, over 400 rotating volunteers with MDS worked and lived in Dulac, building ten new homes and repairing over 80 damaged homes for local residents. Bayou Community Foundation granted $850,000 to MDS to fund building supplies, tools and tradesmen for the project.

The grant was made possible by hundreds of generous donors to the Bayou Recovery Fund including major contributors for this specific project The Ray & Kay Eckstein Charitable Trust, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of LA Foundation, Greater New Orleans Foundation and the Governor’s Hurricane Ida Relief and Recovery Fund.

BCF announced they will welcome MDS volunteers back to Dulac in October to continue the immensely important housing recovery effort,
and they need your help.

The Ray & Kay Eckstein Charitable Trust has issued a $500,000 challenge to Bayou Community Foundation for the project. If BCF raises at least $500,000, the trust will match it providing $1 million for Dulac housing recovery efforts when the MDS volunteers return this fall. “We are on our way, but your continued help is needed to get us to $1 million and beyond for housing recovery,” the announcement stated.

Help BCF meet the amazing challenge and build more homes for needy families with a gift to the Bayou Recovery Fund which can be done here.