By David Ball

david.ball@panews.com

St. Joseph Catholic Church in Port Arthur received showers of devastation from Tropical Storm Harvey. Now, they are receiving showers of blessings.

The Knights of Columbus of the Diocese of Beaumont are receiving a $100,000 donation from the organization to repair damages to the church. The check will be donated at the 9 a.m. Mass on Sunday, Dec. 10 at St. James Catholic Church, 3617 Gulfway Dr. in Port Arthur. St. Joseph has been sharing the St. James Parish since Harvey while their own church is being repaired.

The Rev. Kevin Badeaux, pastor of St. Joseph, said the donation is to help parishes damaged by Harvey. The first stage of recovery will be reopening in a renovated Cody Parish Hall, possibly at the end of January, to celebrate Mass and hold classes and to house the church office. The next phase will be to repair the church sanctuary and then the education building later in the spring.

Badeaux said St. Joseph has flood insurance and insurance from Catholic Mutual, but they still need help in covering expenses insurance may not cover. Moreover, the church has savings, but like other Southeast Texans they’re waiting to hear from the insurance company.

“We have no solid figures yet on an estimate of repairs,” Badeaux said. “We should have estimates on Cody Hall by next week.”

Cody Hall had two feet of water inside, the sanctuary and office had one and a half feet and the education building had three to four feet of water. Sheet rock has been torn out for remediation and other minor repairs made.

Phil Chauvin is the emergency response coordinator for the diocese and also a KC.

He said the Knights of Columbus Grand Council in New Haven, Conn. collected $2.5 million from councils across the United States to aid in Harvey recovery. The $100,000 donation is from the Texas State Council of KCs.

The KCs are also giving $100,000 the following Sunday to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Fannett for their repairs.

“We did an assessment of churches in the diocese affected by Tropical Storm Harvey and these two churches had the most damage,” Chauvin said. “I’m glad we could do it.”

After Harvey hit, KC councils from Louisiana, North Texas and even Michigan brought truckloads of supplies to the area and also cooked for residents.

“Local Brother Knights collected $710,000 in grants,” he said.