Church helps its southern neighbor.

It's been some time since we've reported about Good Samaritans helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but--just as surely as victims of the powerful storm still need help--that help continues to arrive. One of the hardest-hit cities last year was Gulfport, Mississippi, an area that has still not been rebuilt.

Far away from the Gulf Coast, in Jefferson, Oregon, the congregation at Jefferson Baptist Church decided to pitch in and help their neighbors down south. Among the church members is Tracy Roe, the owner of Trinity Custom Homes. Roe owns a piece of equipment called a Takeuchi TB 145 excavator, which sounds like just the thing a hurricane-ravaged community could use to help rebuild a debris-strewn community. He hauled his excavator down to Gulfport, and a team of 16 volunteers from the Jefferson church went along, including Gordon Hilton, the owner of Hilton Trenching; Scott Weddle, of Weddle Construction; Larry Payne, a retired architectural consultant; and others with home repair skills.

Roe told the Salem, Oregon, Statesman Journal that "these people need help" The volunteer team's leader, Richard Pearson, explained to reporters how the church attracted so many skilled volunteers: "We just kind of put the word out there, and the people who came together were really wonderful."

The focal point of the neighbor-to-neighbor effort was the Jefferson group's adopted sister congregation, Robinson Road Baptist Church in Gulfport. The church itself received 20 to 30 thousand dollars' worth of damage from the hurricane, but Pastor Rocky Everett said that repairing church members' homes would receive top priority. "We'll have that excavator busy," Pastor Everett told the Statesman Journal.

Pastor Everett told reporters that, in addition to the Oregon group, other Baptist churches around the country were also helping them. "If it weren't for these churches sending volunteers to help, we'd be much more desperate than we are," the clergyman told the Salem paper.