Lynn Hilpertshauser, Mary Jo Healey, Pat Healey, Dan Papke, Todd Campbell and John Schneider left for New Orleans on Nov. 9 and returned Nov. 17 on a trip to rebuild what was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

She said the group works Monday to Thursday and normally puts in a 40 hour week in those days.

“We get to work as soon as we get there,” Hilpertshauser said.

Usually a person with contracting experience guides the “helping hands”, which for the latest trip was a total of about 20 people from various churches.

Hilpertshauser said they will do anything from gutting a house, to doing finishing work, plumbing or sheet rocking.

“People are so grateful for the work we’ve done,” Hilpertshauser said. “They have the supplies and we have the free labor.”

She said they hear a lot of stories while they are down there, and they take the time for people to talk.

Hilpertshauser said there is still work to be done and that is traumatic for people there.

Members from the church will continue to go down in for two trips a year - one in March and one in November - for a couple more years.

“There is a list of things to do and we just start knocking them off,” Hilpertshauser said.

The group stays at the gym of St. John’s Lutheran Church. Hilpertshauser said the gym sill needs work, but they got a lot of small things done at the school.

She said the school used to have more than 150 students through the eighth grade, but now there are 24 students to the second grade.

Hilpertshause said each year they will add another grade as the kids get older.