Bishop Stacy Sauls had e-mailed the clergy three days earlier, asking volunteers to assemble after the Sunday service to clear out and clean up the dormitory buildings that the diocese has offered to the city, working with the Red Cross to provide long-term shelter for people homeless following Hurricane Katrina.

A decade ago, the seven buildings on the Episcopal campus belonged to a mental-health organization that provided residential care. The All Saints congregation worships in the main building, and a music academy rents a second building.

Plans for getting the remainder of the property ready for mission and ministry have been on the drawing board since February. The bishop’s offer to assist with hurricane-relief efforts brought the plans off the table — and gave Episcopalians in the diocese a hands-on way to offer themselves in this effort.

Each dormitory building can house 38 to 40 people, with bedrooms and baths clustered around common rooms.  In addition, “Moveable Feast,” a longstanding diocesan ministry to provide meals for HIV/AIDS patients, is moving its operation to the commercial kitchen at All Saints and will cook for the evacuees.

Volunteers sorted through the records and left-behind belongings of the former residents, salvaging and recycling materials for other ministries, storing furniture and leaving city dumpsters overflowing — a wooden cross topping the pile as a reminder that this is Christ’s work.

In one building, a construction crew from northern Kentucky laid flooring on the portion of a building that never had been completed.  Outside, gardeners ranging in age from elementary school to post-retirement clipped hedges and pulled weeds.

“When they first see this place, we want every walkway and plant to welcome them,” one said.  “We can’t replace what they’ve lost.  But we can offer them hospitality.”