Dog Soldiers Assisting with Katrina Relief Will Never be the Same

By Dr. Kyle Pepple and Gary Smith
Posted Thursday, October 13, 2005

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On Thursday September 29, 2005, fifteen men from metro-Atlanta headed down to Diamondhead, Mississippi to assist in the disaster relief efforts. They met up with Pastor Chas Jones of the Diamondhead Community Church. Pastor Chas graciously put the men up and fed them dinner every night. Chas acted as a liaison between us and the south Mississippi community while planning our trip. The men did lots of hard work, so we will just tell you a couple of the highlights.

The men brought down 300 school bags and met up with Eddie Banzey, who is the assistant superintendent of Hancock County Schools, which includes Pearlington, Mississippi, where the men spent most of their relief efforts. Eddie said they needed about 1400 bags! He was so thankful to us for our community’s generosity and told us that this will make a difference to the children of Hancock County.

Later that morning of October 1st, the men headed down to Pearlington, Mississippi, a town of approximately 2,000. They went to the home of a frail but tough-as-nails woman named Sandra. We discovered Sandra through Lester the “Ice Man.” Lester came up from Tampa, Florida two days after the storm expecting to “cash in.” Little did Lester know that he would be blown away emotionally and that five weeks later he would still be their delivering ice to Pearlington residents for free!

When Lester introduced us to Sandra, he told her that he would be going home to Tampa, as he had run out of money. She pleaded with Lester to stay because of all of the good he had done for the residents of Pearlington. She asked Gary Smith and me to help her locate and recover her church tithe money that was in the rubble of the left rear corner of her home. We pushed an AC unit through the window and hoisted Sandra into the window. She pulled out a soggy yellow envelope and proceeded to spread the money onto a propane tank, twenty, forty, eighty… $375!!

She then neatly put it back in order and handed it to Lester and asked him to stay a little longer. She told him that the people of Pearlington, MS needed to see his smile.

I don’t have to tell you that we all were touched deeply at that moment and forever. So we told Sandra that we would be back at 8 am with reinforcements.

Phone: (678) 947-4449

e-mail: drpepple@cummingbnc.com

gjsmith@forsythco.com

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