GULFPORT, Miss. – The pod is blue and white, not quite a tent, not quite a shelter. It's barely big enough for three cots and a lot of stifling air. This is home for the week.

There are 50 or so of these boxes, lined neatly in a field behind a small Presbyterian church in Gulfport. We dine under a big white mess tent. We take showers in another set of tents, cleverly rigged to supply hot water.

Rev. Pete Brown/First Presbyterian Church (ENLARGE)

Members of the mission team pose in the home of hurricane victim Betty Smith.

Part 1: After Katrina: Mending Mississippi >>More photos from the trip>>

We're a ragtag group of administrators, clergy, retirees and kids, all of whom have some notion of becoming carpenters.

We may not be the right people for the job, but we're in the right place. Nine months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, anyone who can swing a hammer is a welcome sight to the folks around here.

We make up about 60 people in this volunteer village, coordinated and run by the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Five of us are from First Presbyterian Church in Rocky Mount – the Rev. Pete Brown, Tom Maude, John Turnage, Warren Gold and me.

Other groups come from as far away as Montana, Ohio, Arkansas, Michigan and Virginia. Our disaster assistance T-shirts all read the same: Out of chaos, hope.

The Weems, Va., team makes a point of shaking hands with us on our first day. They know Rocky Mount. They drove to North Carolina shortly after we endured Hurricane Floyd and the flood that followed in 1999.

During our week in Mississippi, more than one of the Virginia folks tells me how appreciative they remember the people of Rocky Mount being for the relief efforts offered by volunteers.

More than once, I smile and feel proud of my adopted hometown for its hospitality. Then I stop and think, how weird is this? Time and time again, these folks drop whatever they're doing, jump in cars and drive off to help towns full of strangers, and now they're making me feel appreciated.

It's a sharp contrast to a newspaper editor's routine of crime reports and wreck photos. Events around here would generate a different breed of headline:

Local man needs roof; strangers give him one.

Amateurs hang wall board; residents applaud.

The volunteer village is overseen by Elizabeth Little, a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate who lived in Charlotte not long ago. Little spent 18 years in the hospitality industry, working for the Walt Disney Co., then the Westin Hotel chain.

Something called her a few months ago to this hot, buggy piece of land in Mississippi. She'll be the first to say she doesn't know much about carpentry, but she knows an awful lot about organizing and feeding the teams of volunteers who stream through the camp each week.

Little had the fortune one week of hosting a group from Washington state that included Dave Williams, a bona fide carpenter. That week saw plenty of quality repairs and reconstruction in the shattered houses of Gulfport and nearby Biloxi.

When Williams prepared to go home, he told Little to give him a call if she needed anything.

Little was on the phone with him the following Monday. And Williams didn't hesitate to return to Mississippi.

He's calm, fit and friendly, offering ample advice to people like us, who greatly need it.

It's one thing for Rocky Mount to send a group to Mississippi. After all, we know firsthand the impact that volunteers can have in a city that's trying to rebuild after disaster. It's only fair that we try to reciprocate when we get the chance.

But people like Little and Williams put me on the floor. So does the group from Montana, who spent the better part of a day just flying to the mission.

I'm trying to imagine the conversations that preceded that trip.

"Honey, a terrible storm has hit a bunch of total strangers who live some place a bazillion miles from here."

"I'll get my tools."

No one dwells too long on any of this. They're too busy repairing roofs, hanging wall board and painting rooms. It's an amazing amount of work from people who may never know the impact of what they're doing. But this doesn't generate much of a headline either.

Newspaper guy sees world a little differently; world smiles, waves, says thanks for noticing.

Jeff Herrin is the editor of the Rocky Mount Telegram. This is the second in a series of columns he's writing about disaster relief efforts in Mississippi.