Bring Miracle Home— A Plea for Help

This post is a plea for your help. It’s got nothing to do with politics, unless you count the big picture that put the Joseph Family at risk to begin with.

I’m just asking you to please reach into your pockets for one courageous family— and to pass the word about their situation on to anyone else who can help. If you have a blog, post about them too.

Let me introduce you to the Josephs and to their struggle to return to their home in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. Their house, which Kellie Joseph had struggled to purchase around ten years ago, while living in the St. Bernard housing project nearby, was inundated by floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

However, the Josephs finally almost completely rebuilt it this year, with great effort and some financial help from a Road Home grant. In an incredibly cruel twist of fate, the house burned completely to the ground last month, after someone torched a stolen car next to it, leaving them with only $12,000 and the charred remains of a house, after insurance paid off the mortgage

Here’s more detail— and how some Tulane medical students have begun a campaign to raise the money needed to rebuild the Joseph family’s home again:

On a fresh late-summer's afternoon of the 22nd of
September, 2007, Miracle Lewis came down to
New Orleans to see her newly restored room.
Miracle's family was rebuilding the home after the
house had been filled with ten feet of water and
damaged by a massive tree. After being forced out
by the storm to Port Allen, LA, and on to Houston,
TX, her family had made it a little closer to their
goal of returning to their roots by finding
temporary-stay housing in Baton Rouge. The
gleeful approval in Miracle's eyes after seeing her
room on this day, however, was truly a milestone
on the soon-to-be-realized path of bringing the
family back home.

Early the next morning, however, a cruel turn of
events quickly devastated their dreams. Some time
during those early morning hours someone had
parked a stolen vehicle their backyard, removed
the tires, and set the car on fire to presumably
destroy any evidence linking the perpetrator to the
vehicle. The resulting inferno engulfed the the
home, and burned it entirely to the ground. A
firefighter was quoted as saying that "the flames
were seen from a mile away, that's how intense it
was." Hours before, the house was 80 percent
complete, and the electricity was scheduled to be
turned on the coming Monday. All that remained
now was ash.

This isn’t the end of their story, however. Family, friends, some local public officials, and the Tulane med students mentioned above have banded together to help raise the funds needed to help the Josephs rebuild their home again. If they’ve got the courage to keep on fighting, can’t we spare a little help to make it possible for them to stay in their home?

Here’s the website for Project: Bring Miracle Home. Learn more by clicking here. There’s a place there to donate and a spot to write your own personal note to the Joseph family. Please do what you can and spread the word to others. Post on your blog if you have one. We can’t rebuild New Orleans on our own, but together, we can help one family. Maybe their story will help us all understand better what we can do together.

NOTE: You can also mail a check if you can not or do do not want to give online.

Mail to:

Capital One
Attn: Mail Teller
PO Box 60150
New Orleans, LA 70160-1050

The Payable to portion should read: "The Kellie Joseph Rebuilding Fund"
and the Memo portion should read: "Account number 2045630008"

h/t to Nicole Belle and Scout

UPDATE— Here's a local news story about Kellie Joseph