When the Saints Go Marching In

Written by Massachusetts Representative Smitty Pignatelli

This is the story of a family from New Orleans who inspired the new NCAS Foundation, Hope For Stanley. We met Stanley Stewart and his family at Christmas time, December 2006 in New Orleans, LA. They had just moved into their FEMA trailer after 16 long, hard months of pain and suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina. Stanley and his family of twelve are only alive today because they were able to escape the 14 feet of dirty water, to the second floor in their New Orleans Ninth Ward home. After spending two days without water, food, plumbing or air-conditioning, they were finally rescued by a neighbor’s small boat from the 2nd floor balcony. The boat brought the family to a bridge, where they had to walk 4 miles to the Convention Center, Stanley sent his family walking to safety without him, you see he was stricken with Polio at birth which made it impossible for him to keep up. After several days at the Convention Center, still not knowing where his own family was, Stanley stayed behind to help every last person board their bus to safety, before finally boarding the bus himself.

We have had a goal to move Stanley back into his 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in time for his wife Betty to cook Thanksgiving Dinner in her own kitchen and set her own table with room enough to host her whole family. We went to New Orleans as volunteers, helping to rebuild Stanley’s home and came back as agents for change believing in the power of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Thanks to the generosity of some Massachusetts Berkshire County volunteers, we were able to put a new roof on Stanley’s home in April and most recently the crew of 25 licenses contractors and carpenters went down to Stanley’s home and completed the rebuild of 1133 Tricou Street, the Stewarts Home in just 6 days. It was like our own version of “Extreme Home Makeover”. Instead of raising money for my political campaign, I asked people to help me raise money for my Campaign to help the Stewart Family move home. All of the materials were donated; floors, windows, cabinets, plumbing fixtures and sheet rock, the volunteers signed up without hesitation and because of the generosity of spirit of citizens in our county, Stanley and Betty now have a certificate of occupancy and will be moving into their home a month before Thanksgiving! There is much more work to be done but we know a small committed group of people truly can make a difference.