Camp Biloxi History
Camp Biloxi was a volunteer camp ministry of RAI Ministries and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Biloxi, MS. Members of Good Shepherd started the camp in Fall 2005 with the help of Southern District Disaster Relief Coordinator Rev.Dave Lewis and District President Kurtis Schultz. The camp served for nearly five years and will be decommissioned on Aug. 29th, 2010. Camp Biloxi was named the “Biloxi Non-Profit Organization of the Year” in both 2006 and 2008.
Camp Biloxi began as a “Tent City” and housed thousands of people eager to help out after Katrina. During its first two years of operations, the camp was managed by Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR). In time, bunkhouses from Orphan Grain Train replaced the tent housing with air-conditioned rooms. Many of these bunkhouses are now part of Camp Restore.
In September of 2007, RAI Ministries assumed management of the volunteer hospitality operations at Camp Biloxi, followed by the construction and case management operations in April of 2008. At about the same time the Mississippi Case Management Consortium contracted with RAI Ministries at Camp Biloxi to offer case management to a share of the 5,000 people still residing in FEMA-supported housing in Mississippi.
Through the camp’s entire lifespan, over 20,600 volunteers were housed and fed while performing over 2,400 minor repairs and house-guttings and completing major repairs and rebuilds on over 2,650 homes.
Good Shepherd elder John Coyle directed the operations of Camp Biloxi from its inception; his wife, Rava, was the volunteer coordinator for the camp and also spent time managing volunteers for Camp Restore in New Orleans. John continues to oversee RAI Ministries’ operations at Camp Restore as well as other endeavors as Chief Operating Officer.
According to Coyle, thanks to Camp Biloxi’s accomplishments, “Before the storm, nobody in Biloxi knew what a Lutheran was; now everybody does!”
