AP Photo by Rogelio Solis A transportation system along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, following Hurricane Katrina.

A New Vision for One
Katrina Survivor
By Katie Laine Newingham, 03.09.06

“Katrina came and when she came she took everything. She took everything I worked hard for. In one day it was just wiped away,” Shay Chaney said.

Chaney was a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home near Biloxi, Mississippi. As a single mother, Chaney had to work two jobs to support her family. She took pride in her ability to provide well for her daughters. So when hurricane Katrina swept everything out from under her she was devastated.

But she said she was also thankful that she didn’t stay in her apartment building because it was demolished. She and her family found refuge in the nursing home where she worked.

“We all pitched in and took care of each other,” she said. “We stayed there for almost seven days in that nursing home, and that was the most terrifying experience I had ever been through.”

Heavy winds tore half the roof off the building where they stayed. Everyone was forced to one side of the building. Chaney and her daughters were cramped in the small space that was already overcrowded. To make matters worse there was not enough food or water.

After this experience, Chaney knew that her family needed to start over. She called her brother who lived in Virginia to ask his advice. He encouraged her to relocate.

But she and her daughters had never been lived outside of Mississippi, and Chaney had never driven 16 hours by herself. She also knew that she couldn’t risk arriving in Virginia without a place to live.

So she made a few calls and stumbled upon a non-profit organization in Newport News, Va. called New Vision who had been asked by Red Cross to coordinate housing for Katrina survivors.

That’s how she got hooked up with Cindy Grice the founder of New Vision.

“Miss Cindy was my main connection,” she said. “She stayed with me the whole time, the whole trip she was right there with me on the phone.”

Once she arrived in Virginia, Grice coordinated for Chaney to receive temporary housing, food assistance, job leads and furniture. The first few months of rent were covered for Chaney, so that she could get back on her feet.

“I had an apartment within 30 days of being here. I had furniture one week after moving in my apartment. I had a job two weeks after being here. I started school in November and I graduate in June,” Chaney said.

With the help she’s received from New Vision and other non-profit groups, Chaney can afford to work one job while she finishes school. When she receives her degree in insurance coding she will be able to make as much with one job here as she made with two in Mississippi.

Her daughters have also had a positive transition.

“My girls have opened up. I have a ten-year-old that was a C average student, and now she’s a B honor roll student,” Chaney said.

Her 14-year-old daughter could always sing, but was too shy to get up in front of people. When she started attending school in Newport News, the choir teacher noticed her voice and encouraged her to try out for the all district choir.

“She has performed in the all-district choir here in Virginia, and she is now running for the all-district city choir,” she said.

In all New Vision helped 55 families transition into the tidewater, Virginia area. A small dent in the thousands that were displaced, but a large impact made by an organization that is run by one woman.

“I could feel the pain of the people and I cried,” Grice said. “I said to God if this is what I feel I can’t imagine what you feel. It impacted my life and I knew that God was going to use me.”

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