Page 22 - South Mississippi Living - December, 2023

PEOPLE
story by Lynn Lofton
photos courtesy of
Ken Wetzel
“EVEN WITH ALL OF THE DEVASTATION, WE NEVER CONSIDERED LEAVING BECAUSE FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND OUR COMMUNITY WERE IN A PLACE OF ASTRONOMICAL NEED,” KEN WETZEL SAYS. “I ACTUALLY STARTED HELPING NEIGHBORS THE MORNING AFTER THE HURRICANE HIT.”
He continued volunteering with several organizations, leading their volunteers in the community, and officially started New Life Disaster Relief in January 2007. “At that time we set up the NLDR Volunteer Camp at Biloxi Christian Church,” he recalls. “Volunteer groups came in from all over the country to assist in our community, while we housed, fed, provided tools, materials, and job site supervision.”
Since then the Wetzels haven't looked back. “The out of town volunteers, along with local volunteers respond with NLDR to disasters on a national basis and assisting in community rebuilds,” he says. “We are so grateful to our volunteers and donors for the relationships that are formed between the Wetzel family and the volunteers, and between the homeowners and the volunteers.”
The organization focuses on three main areas of need – responding to disasters by purchasing and delivering supplies, providing volunteer labor and assessing future needs, and assisting in rebuilding by distributing donations of food, supplies and materials to the community.
22 | December 2023
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