Digital Extras

Volunteers find faith the key to region's recovery
NEW ORLEANS -- Hope and faith motivated 33 volunteers from the Seekonk Congregational Church, United Church of Christ to travel more than a thousand miles to help in the hurricane-relief effort.

Returning to a world turned upside-down
NEW ORLEANS -- Debra Joseph has avoided driving through the worst-hit Ninth Ward, a neighborhood she has known intimately. She did return to her hometown and even shuttled back and forth to a temporary home in Houston for nearly five months.

'I'd be a total wreck'
NEW ORLEANS -- When Alicia Guerra wakes up in the morning, the first thing she thinks about is homework and school. After two days stripping and tearing down walls at a church parsonage near downtown New Orleans, Alicia, a 15-year-old Seekonk High School student, says she has a greater appreciation for the daily hardships faced by people here.

Hope lives amid devastation
Six months after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the city, boats remain lodged alongside local highways, fallen trees and washed-out cars remain part of the landscape and countless homes in the city's mostly middle class Orleans parish remain unoccupied.

Seekonk church group is on the road to New Orleans
It started as a school vacation trip for a group of teenagers who needed to do community service before their confirmation. Now, it's a mission for a group of volunteers who are going to Louisiana to help people in their sister churches rebuild.