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Volunteers Needed to Rebuild Historic Home’s Porch
The Heritatge Conservation Network (HCN) is looking for volunteers to come to Bay St. Louis, Miss. to help in the final stage of restoration of a historic home that was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
The goal of a two-week workshop commencing on Jan. 1 is to repair the home’s original porch, which was ripped from the house during the storm surge.
Volunteers can sign up for one or two weeks, and will be housed in Gulfport.
Participants on the crew will be working at 115 Washington Street, which is in one of the communities on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2006 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The home owner and neighbors have worked for the past year to rebuild the house, and the porch is the final piece of the effort.
“Earlier this year, we had volunteer work crews completely restore a masonry bridge in two weeks, so we have no reason to believe that, with a good response, this porch can’t be completed in that same amount of time,” said Judith Broeker, HCN’s program director.
Volunteers will work under the guidance of a restoration expert and are not required to have experience in working with historic buildings.
The workshop is part of “Rebuilding After Katrina Using Local Resources,” which is exploring various avenues of rebuilding, including deconstruction, salvage and reuse. In the workshop, salvaged historic materials will be used to the greatest extent possible.
Funding for the project is from the Hamer Center at Pennsylvania State University.
Volunteers will be asked to cover their own expenses and should plan to arrive on Dec. 31. For more details and to register, click here.
Anyone wishing to contribute to HCN’s efforts should contact Judith Broeker at 303-444-0128.
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