Enter to win a tiny house at South Church and you could help the Senior High Youth Group rebuild some big ones for New Orleans residents in need.
Whether you collect dollhouses or simply like to feel like a giant, you should enter to win the dollhouse built and decorated by South Church parishioner Winnie Baker. All proceeds go toward an April trip to New Orleans, where the youth group will be helping to rebuild a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The Senior High Youth Group will be working with St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans, which represents an area particularly devastated during the hurricane. Formerly a thriving fishing community where working middle class families owned homes, the hurricane shredded all but two houses and decimated the area.
“It wiped out the entire community. Rents went from $700 a month to $1,800 or $2,400,” Rev. Carlos Jauhola-Straight of South Church said. “Folks that were living there before didn’t have the resources, so St. Bernard works to rehab houses and sell them back to the families who used to live in that area at the cost of materials. They don’t even charge for labor. They rely on groups like us to go down there and be that labor.”
One can only hope the homes the youth group rebuilds are anywhere near as nice as the one Baker created. We’re not joking – this dollhouse is outfitted better than most of the fanciest homes in Concord.
She built the house and furnished all the rooms, creating tiny sheets for the tiny beds and miniature pillowcases for the miniature pillows. It’s easy to envision a perfectly happy plastic family of four moving in and living as comfortably as you can without opposable thumbs.
“It’s a pretty spectacular house,” Alison Nyhan, director of Christian education at South Church, said. “My daughter has (a dollhouse) and I have one from when I was a little kid, so my daughter and I have been working on them, because she’s adamant her house will be as nice as Winnie’s. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but it’s a good attempt.”
“Her attention to detail is pretty amazing, and here generosity was, too” Jauhola-Straight said. “She does this as a hobby and said, ‘I want to do this for the youth group.’ ”
The drawing for the dollhouse is March 17. Tickets are $5 or five for $20 and can be purchased at the South Church’s main office Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Those who would like to get a closer look at the dollhouse can do so during fellowship hours on Sunday morning, or while the church is open during the week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., though Nyhan encouraged calling ahead during lunch hours to make sure someone is present.
There are also plenty of pictures available on the church’s website at southchurchconcord.org/photos/dollhouse-fundraiser.
It will be the group’s second trip to New Orleans, though this one may be especially critical given that the same area devastated by Katrina was also drilled by Hurricane Isaac in 2012.
“We went four years ago, and it looked like a war zone. There were strip malls completely blown apart from the waters,” Jauhola-Straight said. “Last year they had Hurricane Isaac, and it didn’t bring as much damage, but they still had 30 families on a waiting list, and they had to stall all the work, so the list got even longer.”
