Bayou La Batre Nonprofit Hosts Thanksgiving for Families Still Hurting From Oil Spill

Nearly a decade after Hurricane Katrina and years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a Bayou La Batre nonprofit is still working to feed families in south Mobile County who have never fully recovered from those twin disasters.

The Bayou Recovery Project hosted its first community Thanksgiving dinner Thursday inside a newly acquired building the organization calls “Children’s Place,” bringing together families the nonprofit has served since its founding roughly nine years ago. John Michael Evans, who drives a 16-passenger van for the Hemley Road Church of Christ in Bayou La Batre, ferried a group of children to the dinner.

“It’s rewarding,” Evans said. “It’s more rewarding than a job you get paid for. I learn a lot from the kids. There is a lot adults can learn from children.”

William Spaulding, executive director of the Bayou Recovery Project, said the need in the community remains real even years after the 2010 oil spill faded from national headlines.

“A lot of people think the oil spill is gone and out of the way, but it’s not,” Spaulding said. “This is what we have to do. We love the children, it’s what we do.”

The Children’s Place building, more than 50 years old, was donated to the organization about nine months ago by the Downey Foundation. Beyond hosting children’s activities, the space has become a hub for feeding people in need throughout the week. From Monday through Wednesday, as many as 380 families visit for hot meals purchased with the help of volunteers who shop at the Bay Area Food Bank. On Fridays, the Recovery Project delivers food to roughly 300 families across the south Mobile County area, with driver Roosevelt Harris – who was featured in Margaret Brown’s documentary “The Great Invisible” about the oil spill’s lingering economic toll – among those making deliveries. On Saturdays, the building hosts games and cookouts for 60 to 70 children and teenagers.

Despite the growing demand, Spaulding said funding for the effort is getting tighter. Support has come primarily from churches in Brewton and in El Campo, Texas, but the Texas congregation is expected to scale back its giving soon as it redirects resources closer to home.

Spaulding, who is retired, said a single trip to the food bank can cost as much as $80, while total monthly donations run around $400 – a gap he said he sometimes covers out of his own pocket.

Two disasters

Bayou La Batre, a small city in south Mobile County built around seafood processing and boatbuilding, was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge in August 2005.

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers and causing the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history. The spill closed large areas of Gulf waters to fishing that year, cutting off work for many families tied to the seafood industry.