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Camp Restore marks 25,000 volunteers for Katrina recovery

The team from Faith Lutheran High in Las Vegas is building a nearly 60-feet-long wheelchair ramp in New Orleans East.
WWLTV

NEW ORLEANS -- The team from Faith Lutheran High in Las Vegas is building a nearly 60-feet-long wheelchair ramp in New Orleans East.

"Just glad we're helping him out and we're bringing each closer together," said Dillon Pearse, 15.

The ramp is for 82-year-old retired postal worker Joseph Seymour.

"Makes me feel like a man now, more like a man than I did before," said Seymour.

"It's a miracle, because I had to take and get other people to come and help," added Gail Butler, his daughter.

160 volunteers in New Orleans this week bring the total to 25,000 helping Camp Restore's project to recover and rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.

"There's huge interest. We actually have more volunteers this year than we did last year," said Camp Restore's Kurt Jostes. "In numbers, that's over 3,000 volunteers that will be down this season, and we're already getting bookings for next season."

So many people want to help, Camp Restore is able to tackle new projects.

"There's obviously still restoration work going on, but more and more we're finding more and more projects out there that are proactive, like rebuilding wetlands, replanting trees," said Jostes.

Is it hard to believe it has been almost 10 years since Katrina? We owe so many volunteers so much who helped us rebuild. And they're still coming, like Tony Hansen from Maryland.

"Been here 15 or 16 times, and I come down because I'm retired and I'm still able to do some things, and this is what God wanted me to do," said Hansen.

They changed our lives, but we changed theirs.

"I'd never heard anything good about New Orleans being from the north, the graft and corruption," said Hansen. "But I got down here, and I found nothing but great people, wonderful folks."

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