Brian Stewart  - Winner !

Well in answer to some of the questions I have had posted.
Before leaving New, Zealand I was a supervisor for Habitat for Humanity (hfh) in the Auckland area for 3 years.
I arrived in the U.S.A. August 10th 2005 with the intention of hooking up with hfh here but Hurricane Katrina came in on August 28th 2005 so that seemed like the place to be. It took me some time to make contact with anyone in the Gulf but finally made contact with a guy in Miami who I had worked with several times back in New, Zealand and we went into Biloxi Mississippi the week before Christmas 2005.
We were the first team to arrive that had any construction knowledge and I was put in charge of the team. Prior to that all work done there was clean up and gutting of surviving houses so we got under way with the first house to be rehabbed under the First Methodist Church which lodged us and fed us and supplied the funding for materials.
The Miami team left after a week and I stayed on for another 3 years. During that time, with the help of many volunteer teams and numerous churches and organizations we rehabbed 180 homes and built 120 new, homes.
It wasn’t always easy sailing, sometimes lack of funding, other times, difficult home owners. We dealt with thefts, I had my truck and all my tools I had accumulated for volunteers stolen. At that point I nearly gave up and returned to New Zealand. We also had the scam artist invade the area and fleece home owners desperate to get back into their homes. One home owner lost $80,000. Most were in the $20,000 to $30,000 range. That put a huge strain on our funding resources. We also had trade contractors come in and they jacked the prices from $25.00 per hour to upwards of $140.00 per hour. So we had to weed out the crooks and negotiate prices down to an acceptable level.
I did the work voluntarily for 6 months where by that time I was in need of a wage myself and fortunately, funding was found for it.
I worked with many churches that housed and feed the teams of volunteers that came in and we developed a trust and working relationship. Some of the organizations that I worked with played special roles and one in particular was the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army provided food, clothing, accommodations and storage facilities. I was able to secure storage through them, which made life a lot easier on the construction side of things, being that I often had 20 or more houses under construction at any one time. I couldn’t oversee more than 6 houses and teams in any given week. Often house sat uncompleted for weeks as we waited on funding and we fielded off irate home owners because of lack of progress on their home.
In all though much was achieved in what we called, ’’organized chaos’’ and the other saying we had down there was, ‘’ we had to deal with the greed before we could deal with the need.’’. It was not the perfect situation but I met many fine people and without the volunteers who played a special role down there, little would have been achieved. Their unselfish giving and generous hearts made it all possible.
It was a time in my life where I was available to fill the role I played there. It has changed my life forever. For good and bad but I wouldn’t of missed. It wore my out and after 3years, it was hard to leave because there was still much to do but had to accept I had done all I could and there were others fresher than me coming in.
To all the wonderful people I worked with, far too many to name, the 6,000 volunteers and hundreds of church people, administrators, leaders and cooks. Thank you.

Marmite is as salty as fresh sea water dripping from a crayfish's white meat... Marmite is as black shadows gleaming at you... Marmite is so good I can't even describe how good it is...all I can say is that kiwi marmite is stuck in my mind forever... By Phoenix

Brian Stewart
Yesterday at 10:32am
well this is exciting that sanitarium is doing this. marmite has always been in my cupboard. i dont use it everyday but when i do i tend to pig out on it. i consider as a medicine in some ways. whenever i dont feel well or dont know what i feel like to eat, i always turn to marmite. funny enough, it was just the other day when i introduced two colorado boys to it. was telling them the other things i like with it, like cheese. so one of them mixed nutella with it, which i had also introduced to them. i thought that was a weird combo but said it was good. yet to try it myself. anyway, i hope t be back home in nz by christmas. been away 5 yrs and two of my kids are getting married, so i want to be there for the weddings