The Emmanuel Baptist Church, in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn, has adopted three families of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who are currently living in the Radisson Hotel at the John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens. These families are among the several hundred people being housed in hotels throughout New York City. Church members are providing the families with clothing and supplies, housing, and job placement assistance. They hope to have each of the families in an apartment by Christmas.

Reverend Anthony L. Trufant, senior pastor of Emmanuel, says that the church made the ongoing commitment to the families because he believes that Christians should help people in ways that have a substantial and lasting impact. “For us, Christmas is not about sentimentality, about doing good deeds at a certain time of year,” he said. “While every little bit helps, we need to marshal resources to show God’s care. We need to be involved in a consistent way with assistance, advocacy, and the addressing of physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of people who have suffered unfathomable loss,” he added.

The evacuees who are being sponsored by the church include Audrey Mason, a 63-year-old widow and her grandson Rayshun Varnado, 22; Crystal Hilaire, a 31-year-old New York native, who had lived in New Orleans for the past eight years, and her 21-month-old daughter Channel; and 54-year-old Florence Dawson, who is returning to New York after living in Biloxi, Mississppi for 24 years.

The assistance to these evacuees is part of an ongoing effort on the part of church members to aide people affected by Hurricane Katrina. In September and October, church volunteers filled two18-wheeler trucks with donated clothing and supplies for people in two of the most severely impacted areas: Baton Rouge, Louisiana., which received a large portion of evacuees from New Orleans; and Moss Point, Mississppi., a small town of 16,000, which sustained a direct hit, but was virtually ignored by federal and national relief efforts.

The church had planned to assist Katrina victims in Houston, and Mobile, Ala., during the months of November and December. However, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that its support of hotel stays for evacuees would end this month, the church leadership decided to offer assistance to displaced families who were in living in New York hotels. (A judge ruled Monday that the program must be extended until February 7.)

The families being helped by Emmanuel were selected through a program run by a consortium of churches led by the Reverend James Pullings and the Leviticus Church of God in Christ of Queens, NY. Volunteers from these churches have been assisting evacuees since they arrived in New York, taking care of their immediate needs as well as helping them access city resources and educating them about their rights. Reverend Trufant believes that this is the untold story of aftermath of Katrina.

“Churches often get knocked for what they are not doing, but, the truth is, most churches are doing a great deal, but without a lot of fanfare or media spotlight,” he said. “Christian churches have been involved from the beginning, but we’ve sought to draw attention not to ourselves but rather to the people in need.”

More details about the families being helped by Emmanuel can be found on the church’s Web site at www.ebc-ny.org. For more information, or to arrange interviews, please contact Gwendolyn Quinn of GQ Media & Public Relations 212-765-7910 or gwendolynquinn@aol.com.