Charity cycling team stops in SWLA to help repair hurricane-damaged homes

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - Volunteers and bicyclists are traveling across the Gulf Coast with one goal in mind: to help reconstruct damaged homes from the hurricanes.

They stopped in Lake Charles and Sulphur this week to lend a helping hand.

“Anyone can make a difference, we all have such a wide variety of skills and once we find those skills, we can use those to make the world a better place,” student volunteer Kenzie Vonrentzll said.

The Fuller Center Bike Adventure is a fundraising ride team that pedals state to state for four to seven hours a day to raise money and then uses those funds to help reconstruct homes.

Fuller Center Disaster Rebuilders volunteer coordinator Toni Karam Ratliff explained some of the repairs that have been done to the home so far.

“This home, when we found it, we pretty much had to gut a lot of it, we’ve kept some of the walls so we changed our sub floor, ceiling, and now she’s getting new flooring, paint, trim cabinets and new bathroom,” Ratliff said.

Along with the many things being fixed in the home, volunteers are painting several base boards to lay along the house and the flooring to help it looks fresh.

The project has been a few months in the making and is expected to be completed at the end of this month.

“As we walk in this life he have to be neighbors, we have to be brothers and sisters, we have to be those who see the humanity in each other and pick each other up,” said Mark DeYounge, Dean of Christian Formation at Northwestern College.

For more information on how you can be a volunteer or get assistance with your home, you can visit the organization’s website.

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