By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A team of eight to 10 Vineyard Christian Fellowship members is preparing to bring hurricane relief to Baton Rouge and Kenner, La.

The Lewiston church has committed its help in a 12- to 18-month national Vineyard Fellowship effort aimed at meeting the needs of Hurricane Katrina victims.

Allen Austin, Heidi Casavant and Cindy Harthorne are coordinating the local effort. After a meeting of potential volunteers Sunday afternoon, they said that possibly “hundreds of people” affiliated with the local church could take part in the effort.

Not all will necessarily spend a week or more in Louisiana. Some will help locally, soliciting businesses and individuals for contributions of food, water, fuel and other necessities. Others will lend trucks and campers that will house team members while they’re working in Louisiana’s capital city or Kenner.

Kenner, said Austin, was the site of a Vineyard church with a membership of about 2,000 people.

It had planned an open house for its new church building on the weekend that Katrina hit. Now its members are scattered across the nation, refugees of the storm.

Austin said local volunteers will be tasked to perform certain relief efforts that could range from offering child care to helping rebuild homes. Tasks will posted in advance by the national fellowship, and volunteers “will bring what we need to to get the job done,” said Casavant.

Volunteers will be willing to go where-ever and do whatever, the coordinators said. Their trips south will average 10 to 14 days.

Austin said only adult volunteers will be allowed to take part in the effort in Louisiana. The first local team should be leaving Lewiston sometime around the end of this month.

People who want to contribute to the effort or to learn more about it can call the church at 784-9500 or visit its Web site, www.vcflewiston.org.

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