Ohio bishop leads volunteers offering hands-on help in New Orleans

Published: 2005-12-22

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) -- For nearly four months after Hurricane Katrina hit, Melanie Ally did not have the stomach to walk inside her New Orleans home. But with 15 volunteers who had arrived from Ohio to gut her house as part of Catholic Charities' Operation Helping Hands program, Ally, 64, finally marshaled the courage to walk across the threshold Dec. 19. She put on a mask and gloves and tied plastic bags around her shoes for protection, tying them at the ankles with rubber bands. The volunteers were from the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and included Steubenville Bishop R. Daniel Conlon. As they pushed wheelbarrows of drywall and insulation toward the growing mound of debris at her curb, Ally emerged with a plastic Wal-Mart bag. Inside were three items salvaged from her bedroom: two small statues of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Infant of Prague and a large crucifix. "I had these two statues on my dresser, and I'm not going to save anything else," said Ally, a lay Carmelite. "That's it. Everything's gone. Everything's gone."

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