At last year’s conference in Virginia, Millard Fuller asked FCNWLA board members Becky Cooksey and Katie Weir to host the 2010 meeting.

Beginning at 1 p.m. Friday, the various sessions will be held at First United Methodist Church. The Saturday afternoon sessions end with a tour of Allendale, which the Fuller Center calls its “flagship” building site.

Dinner will follow with Linda Fuller, cofounder of the Fuller Center for Housing, speaking. Attendance at a Sunday worship service is optional.

Local home owner Phyllis Davis has been selected to speak at Friday’s dinner.

Lee Jeter, FCNWLA executive director, said he is proud to host the event and “to showcase what we’ve built, all our partners and our city.”

The conference will cover over 13 topics. Weir said that the essential idea she formed at last year’s meeting is the “importance of partnering with entities in the community.” Several of the conference’s sessions address this concern.

Weir also is interested in the session labeled, “ReUse Store Strategies.” She said this is about creating an income source from the reselling of donated items. “For example,” Weir said, “many stores will donate items that they can’t sell because of imperfections.”

Groups that receive these items may not be able to use them in their building projects but can resell them for operating revenue.

2009 Conference

Participants in the conference will be staying at the Downtown Holiday Inn on Lake Street and will be transported to the church and other venues.

Weir said that they will need about 15 local volunteers to help with the conference in areas such as meals, registration and transportation. She hopes that many FCNWLA board members will be able to participate.

Register At FullerCenter.org – Put on your Google Calendar

“The floors are cracked,” said Brazile. “We have holes in the walls. The doors aren’t even with the thing so a lot of wind comes through and we don’t have any source of heat except the stove and a couple electric heaters.”

Just last week an anonymous good Samaritan learned about Brazile’s situation and called Shreveport police hoping to help.

“Most people call to put people down but they were concerned enough to try to get some help and not try to hurt me,” said Brazile. “I’m overwhelmed.”

Shreveport Police Department Corporal Mike Dunn and Sandra Lister went to work.

“When I called businesses some of them I didn’t tell what I wanted I just told them I had a family I wanted them to meet and when they came out they felt compelled to do it for me,” said Lister.

Within days help poured in. Wilbert Williams with Mt. Mariah Baptist Church will donate $500.00. Calvin and Delores Johnson’s Motorcycle Club will donate a sink and a monetary gift. Richard Rascoe with the Whitlock Plumbing Company will complete all of Brazile’s plumbing work for free.

“If you come to our church and say you need help we will open our doors and our hearts because that’s what Jesus did,” said Williams.

“Some have and some have not,” said Johnson. “It’s always been a close thing to our hearts to help put back into the community.”

“I want to get everything going for her and take care of those little ones and be able to clean up,” said Rascoe.

The outpouring of love is a Christmas miracle Brazile never thought she would receive.

“If I thanked them all day and all night and all month and all year it really wouldn’t be enough,” said Brazile.

C.J. Enterprises has donated $1000.00 to the Brazile family and challenges other businesses to do the same.

The future is looking even brighter for Brazile and her children. Shreveport’s Fuller Center for Housing is currently helping Brazile apply for a brand new home through its program.

© Amber Miller /KTAL

A partnership was formed that is now helping residents in other cities as well. The Fuller Center builds houses; CRI builds community. Together, we are “Building on Higher Ground” to help those who lack the resources and the relationships that could make home ownership possible on their own.

The vision goes beyond building houses for a few. We are building hope for many. Shreveport’s Allendale neighborhood – an area of decaying houses, high crime and little income – was chosen for the launch of the “Higher Ground” initiative. With hundreds of volunteers coming from throughout the nation, this once forgotten neighborhood is now a place of new hope and new beginnings that is receiving worldwide attention.

Community Renewal International

A garden grows where trash and bottles once filled a vacant lot. Children gather on a playground built by a local service club. Residents who were once too frightened to come out of their houses now laugh and eat together at neighborhood block parties.

“Many years ago this was one of the worst communities in the city. Homicides, crime, gang activity – you name it and it was here,” said Jewel Mariner, one of two CRI Community Coordinators in Allendale. She lives in a Friendship House that has become an anchor for the neighborhood.

“It’s amazing to see the transformation in people’s lives and in this neighborhood. People used to just call this The Hill. Now it’s New Hope Hill. People in the community now have hope.”

By the start of 2007, little more than one year after work started, 23 new houses had been built in the community. Each one has its own unique features, designs and color schemes. Several of the new homeowners have become CRI Haven House leaders and now reach out to others in the neighborhood.

“I want to be a light on the hill. I care about my community and I want us to come together,” said Dorothy Wiley, who made a new start in Shreveport after she and her family were trapped in the New Orleans Superdome for four days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home. “You build a neighborhood by being a neighbor to everybody. You develop relationships one person at a time.”

The Higher Ground project was launched by Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity and then later of The Fuller Center for Housing.

“We are here to transform this city. We have the opportunity to make this one of the most beautiful cities in the country,” he said. “It’s so exciting that Community Renewal International and the Friendship Houses are here. You can build houses, but if you don’t build community, it will all fall apart.”

The area’s story is no secret. Formerly thriving blocks decayed into buildingless, overgrown lots. But that is changing slowly.

Nonprofits and churches such as People of Praise, Community Renewal International, Habitat for Humanity, Mt. Canaan and Galilee Baptist churches and the Fuller Center for Housing have built dozens of homes and apartments that provide housing below market and at competitive prices. That has happened in conjunction with government plus help from private businesses.

But residences alone can’t restore a place, according to elected and unofficial community leaders. So commerce and other amenities must come next.

Allendale native Claude Marshall is trying to do that with his family’s Dale Street Grocery and Deli. The business has been open nearly a year in a building that housed a former store before it burned.

Garden of Hope - © Douglas Collier/The Times

Marshall takes a hyper local approach in his enterprise. He doesn’t sell alcohol — “seeing as how it’s destroyed the neighborhood” — and is hoping to get involved with WIC — which stands for Women, Infants, and Children — and provides money to get food for mothers and their young children.

“When you’ve got to pay somebody $5 to get something that cost $2, it just wouldn’t be feasible,” Marshall said, alluding to the cost of taxis or public transportation being too expensive. “They want something to eat without having to walk a long way to get it.”

Marshall, 55, is glad his business has seen its first Thanksgiving: “I’m in the black. I’m not in the red. I thank the loyal customers that come in every day.”

Shreveport City Councilman Calvin Lester, who has represented the neighborhoods since 2002, is thankful for business owners like Marshall.

“We have built houses and we have put people in those houses. But the thing that needs to happen now is focusing on the entrepreneurial opportunities and the economic development for the area,” Lester said. “I have said that there are some things that government does well, and there’s others it does not. I think government can build houses, but it takes more than just governmental intervention to rebuild communities.”

Empty parcels of land don’t just happen. Between 1970 and 2000, the population in Allendale shrank from 16,247 to 5,982. During that same time, Shreveport’s total residents grew nearly 10 percent from 182,064 to 200,145.

But besides new houses, Allendale and Ledbetter Heights residents have found other creative ways to rebuild.

The appropriately named Rosie Chaffold takes care of the Allendale Garden of Hope and Love. She’s a familiar face to neighbors — who honked and waved while driving by on a recent Tuesday — and she’s received media attention and accolades over the years for her work with dirt.

With lots of help from the LSU AgCenter and volunteers from outside the neighborhood, she provides plenty of green stuff for neighbors to eat, free of charge, plus well-kept flower beds. And all on a street corner where she and police say folks used to meet “for something stronger than that — something illegal.” And that would have been drugs.

But since 2001, Chaffold said, neighbors who used to ask her why she tried to make a difference occasionally stop by to help her with gardening. Now she feels gratified but hopes more nearby residents will join her. The work and the food, she said, are the bounty.

“When you’re in a garden you feel like you’re next to God, close to the Earth,” said Chaffold, a Mer Rouge native who has called Allendale home for more than three decades.

Ruth Peace has seen more changes in Allendale than Chaffold. The 89-year-old woman has lived on Buena Vista Street, where she raised a family with her late husband, since 1960. She eats a vegetable or two from the community garden now and then, and she appreciates the work that goes into it.

“I’ll be 90 years old come next August, so you know I have a whole lot to be thankful for,” Peace said. “It has changed. But there’s always room for improvement.”

By Adam Kealoha Causey • acausey@gannett.com

Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20091128/NEWS01/911280318/1060

For Allendale, Night Out’s crime awareness message hits particularly close to home. It is a neighborhood revitalized, said Shreveport police Cpl. Lonnie Haskins, who has been assigned to that district since he joined the force in 1997 and attended Tuesday’s event along with other police officers and firefighters.

Parents were grilling out and chatting with each other while children laughed, ate hot dogs, made sidewalk art, jumped in a bouncy house and explored a fire engine.

“In ’97, ’98, ’99, we were bumpin’ and gunnin’ out here,” Haskins said of Allendale, where at the time at least five calls for service poured in each night. He’s seen the neighborhood turn around, something he said he never envisioned could happen and for which he credits the Fuller Center for Housing of Northwest Louisiana and Friendship Houses.

Sherry Brown, 40, works for Community Renewal International and lives in one of the two Friendship Houses in the 1500 block of Clay, where trim and prim affordable houses built by the Fuller Center line the streets.

Harkening back to the neighborhood’s violent past and in the spirit of Night Out, Fuller Housing recipient and neighbor Dorothy Wiley, 55, made a poster with a clever acronym.

“Let’s say no to:
“C-arrying concealed firearms without a permit
“R-ape
“I-llegal possession of drugs/firearms
“M-anslaughter
“E-ntry of an inhabited dwelling.”

She posted it on the front door of one of the two Friendship Houses.

Rudolph Glass Jr., 45, and his wife immediately began to regret their decision when they bought a house on Clay 12 years ago. Not so now.

“Things really started to change when they put the Friendship House in. And ever since then it’s just been getting better and better and better,” said Glass, who has manned the grill at each of the past seven Night Out parties.

Community Renewal International’s Brown says it all starts by meeting the needs of neighborhood children, which works as a domino effect in involving their parents.

Glass’ 15-year-old son, Rudolph Glass III, has attended after-school programs at the Friendship Houses the past seven years. As the high school student helped tear down equipment from the party and carry boxes to cars, his father explained that he’s involved in the neighborhood association and attends parent meetings in a neighborhood he didn’t want to be a part of 12 years ago.

Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009911040314

Not far from Alston Street, volunteers slipped on their gardening gloves and got a little dirty to clean up the Asian Gardens at Milam and Common streets. The Aseana Foundation, which manages the downtown garden, put on the event in partnership with Make a Difference Day.

“I just thank everyone who thought enough of me to come out here and work,” Sullivan said. “I’ve been blessed with a house before. The house before was from my parents, but this one is mine — it’s a lot different,” she said with big smile.

Make A Difference Day 2009

Walker said she never dreamed she’d be a homeowner at age 22. The house was originally built to be handicap accessible, but during the build process Walker’s grandmother, who applied for the house and convinced Walker to be a co-applicant, passed away.

“I say she knew that she was going to pass away. That’s why she wanted me to be the co-applicant,” Walker said, calling the house a blessing for her and her 5-year-old son, Rodrigues Walker.

Walker grew up in Allendale and her approaching move-in date is bringing her full circle. From birth to age 12, Walker lived in a small house on the very lot where her new three-bedroom, two-bathroom house stands in the 1400 block of Alston Street. She said she was shocked when she learned months ago the location of her future house.

Just outside her kitchen door is a sidewalk adjoining her house to the house of soon-to-be-neighbor Sullivan, 67, the woman’s granddaughter and two grandchildren.

In 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approached, Sullivan and her family vowed to leave together and stay together or not leave at all. “There were 21 of us, and we left in my granddaughter’s Hyundai Elantra.”

Walker’s and Sullivan’s houses are the 39th and 40th houses completed by the Fuller Housing Center.

“When we undertook our 40th home — 40 is typically a number of trials and tribulations — we knew we would have some trials and tribulations,” said Lee Jeter, the center’s executive director.

Construction began Aug. 31 and as deadline — Make a Difference Day — approached, the rains came.

The constant rain over the past two weeks “has proven this house is built on the rock,” Jake Owensby, dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral, said alluding to Matthew 7:25, which reads “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”

Receiving the keys to their homes is not the last step, but the first step, in the women’s path to home ownership, according to Katie Weir, co-chair of the center’s board.

Sullivan and Walker will each close on their house later this week and enter a 20-year, no-interest mortgage. Their mortgage payments, set between $350 and $400, pay for the cost of the building materials.

The formerly adjudicated property the houses are built on is donated as well as all labor and some materials. And the city’s role in donating the land is one Mayor Cedric Glover said “represents the greatest of win-win scenarios the city likes to be involved in.”

The city is able to move out of the red when these property are no longer their responsibility to maintain. “We’re returning stakeholders to this community,” Glover said.

© Kelsey McKinney/Shreveport-Times

Now, five years later, her tears are joyful.

“I started crying and thanking God,” she said. “I know he was responsible for getting us here.”

Sullivan is a recipient of one of two houses constructed Monday during the inaugural Millard Fuller Legacy Build.

The event was part of a 100-house nationwide blitz honoring Millard Fuller, late founder of The Fuller Center and Habitat for Humanity. Lee Jeter, executive director of the Fuller Center of Northwest Louisiana, said that build falls on Fuller’s wedding anniversary. The center worked in collaboration with the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

“We work together to obliterate substandard housing,” Jeter said.

The houses were built in the 1400 block of Alston Street in the Allendale neighborhood. By the end of the blitz, the non-profit would have constructed its 40th house.

Louise Cummings, a double amputee who has diabetes, will live in her house with her granddaughter and great-grandson. The house is sponsored by First United Methodist Church and will be constructed to meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

Cummings already has plans for her new home. She’ll move in her furniture and then sit on the porch.

“I’m going to do something crazy,” she said. “I’m going to get my granddaughter to cook me a big old meal.”

St. Marks Cathedral, First Baptist Church, Holy Trinity Catholic Church, St. Joseph Catholic Church and Church of the Holy Cross sponsored Sullivan’s house.

“I thank God,” she said. “He gave me another chance. If it wasn’t for him, I never would have made it. I’m glad I’m here in Shreveport. I never thought I would leave New Orleans.”

© Icess Fernandez/Shreveport-Times – ifernandez@gannett.com

The goal of the local group is building two new houses from Aug. 31 though Sept. 4.

Legacy Build Day 1 - 2009

The 39th house has been funded by First United Methodist Church, Shreveport. Lee Jeter, executive director of The Fuller Center for Housing of Northwest Louisiana, said he is still soliciting funds from several other churches for the 40th house.

Jeter has been encouraging churches in the Allendale neighborhood to participate.

He wants the churches to become aware of the Fuller Center ministry and to volunteer time even if their financial resources limit their giving, to tithe or give love offerings to help support the center’s ministry and to refer applicants for both the new houses and the Greater Blessing home rehabilitation program.

“Millard Fuller brought in resources, including $2.5 million, when he committed to building houses here,” Jeter said. “We must build on that legacy.”

Legacy Build Day 2 - 2009

The FCNWLA completed 19 houses in 2006, 14 in 2007 and 5 in 2008.

To volunteer for the Legacy Build, register by Aug. 15 at www.fullercenter.org or phone 318-221-7474.

Those who lack building skills can help with registration, prepare/serve meals, keep workers hydrated, run errands and help with cleanup.

This tragedy is especially sad for us at The Fuller Center for Housing. The First Baptist Church is one of our stalwart partners in Shreveport. From the earliest days of Building on Higher Ground the church has been a part of the project, sending volunteer work teams and sponsoring houses. Millard preached from their pulpit. As the local covenant partner was being organized Pastor Greg Hunt came forward to offer leadership and the church has been active in encouraging others to join the effort. We are deeply indebted to our friends at First Baptist and we share their grief.

Members of the 1st Baptist team in front of a house they sponsored at the Millard & Linda Fuller Build

Events like this leave you wondering what to do. You wish you could reach out and say, “It will be alright” and wipe away the tears. You wish you could explain it in a way that would comfort the families and friends. But you can’t, so we will do what we can—we’ll pray for the injured and the family of the boy who died. We’ll pray for First Baptist that they have strength and faith as they work through the difficult days ahead. We ask you to pray for them as well.

The relationship between The Fuller Center and the church is a deep and abiding one. From the earliest days of his ministry Millard looked to the church for support and began establishing partnerships that survive to this day. We’re not a church, but a servant to the church, and when the church is hurting we hurt as well. May the good Lord enfold the folks at First Baptist in his comforting arms.

But by the time Millard asked us to stand on our chairs, to physically and visually symbolize the idea of Building on Higher Ground, I think we would have just as readily stood on a flagpole. We were that inspired.

He also shared a word new to most of us “” Oyee (Oh — yay). A word of African origin, it was a rallying cry and a shout of affirmation we would hear many times.

For Shreveport, the meeting that morning led to the 38 beautiful new homes, built by volunteers from around the nation, now standing in the Allendale neighborhood. Millard committed to at least 60, and I have no doubt we will reach that number.

For me, that meeting led to one of the greatest honors of my life: to work with and for one of the truly heroic servant leaders of our time. Millard made $1 million before he was 30, but when it nearly cost him his marriage, he gave it all away, took his family to the mission field and then returned home to start Habitat for Humanity. Under his leadership, Habitat housed more than one million people in 100 nations.

Millard died from heart failure in an ambulance not far from his Georgia home Feb. 3, one month after his 74th birthday. Despite his age, his sudden death came as an absolute shock. He had tremendous energy and often seemed to have a hammer in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

Community Renewal International founder Mack McCarter drove to Georgia soon after the hurricane to meet with Millard, a longtime friend, and to seek the help of The Fuller Center for Housing in Shreveport. Millard answered the call like a father rushing to the bedside of a sick child. He visited Allendale and saw in his visionary mind more than houses for hurricane evacuees. He saw something few Shreveporters ever imagined for that crime-ridden area “” a new community. Today on these streets of Allendale, where flowers bloom and children play outside, we can see what Millard saw back in 2005.

Millard spoke so often about Shreveport in his travels the past three years that the Chamber of Commerce should have put him on the payroll. He believed in this city with a force that put many of us to shame.

Ever smiling, always optimistic, he challenged us to stop driving by our downtrodden communities as though they don’t even exist. Because of Millard, many people who never dared go into Allendale volunteered to build houses there and now have friends there.

Millard made Shreveport a better place. He made the world a better place.

He also sensed that his time with us was drawing to a close. The last time I heard Millard preach was in Union Church of San Salvador before the start of the Millard and Linda Fuller Blitz Build last fall.

“I started Habitat for Humanity when I was 40 and I started The Fuller Center when I was 70. I tell people I have to go faster now because I have less time,” he said that morning in El Salvador. “When you are approaching the goal line, when you are coming to the end, you need to speed up, not slow down. My philosophy is you oughta wear out instead of rusting out.”

Millard certainly did not rust out, and I don’t think he wore out, either. I would rather believe that God needed another builder for the mansions in heaven and he gave Millard a new assignment.

We miss you terribly, Millard, but it is a well-deserved promotion. I only hope the angels remembered to shout Oyee when you arrived.

© David Westerfield

David Westerfield is the director of communications for Community Renewal International and a member of the board of The Fuller Center of Northwest Louisiana.