When Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, Melba Leggett-Barnes saw her whole life washed away. “Everything I had in the world we lost,” she tells Life & Style. “I mean everything. All I had left were two pairs of shorts, one pair of underwear, a pair of slippers, a purse and a suitcase with some important papers in it.”

Enter Brad Pitt and his Make It Right foundation, which builds environmentally sound homes for the hardest-hit residents of New Orleans. With their help, Melba’s desperation and loss turned into hope. Her house was one of the first to be constructed, and Brad himself often came to check on the progress and make sure she was okay. “Oh, he comes to the house all the time,” Melba tells Life & Style, “It’s wonderful — he’s just like a relative!” Melba’s even shared a meal with Brad, who calls New Orleans his family’s “base camp.” “We ate gumbo,” she says. “I made it. He loved it.”

Melba’s neighbor Robert Green, whose mother and granddaughter were killed in the hurricane, put Melba in touch with Make It Right. Robert tracked down Melba – who had been living with her husband, Baxter, in Clayton, N.C., where Melba cooked in a grammar school cafeteria and drove a school bus — and urged her to apply. “Brad and Angelina have a great love for what they’re doing,” Robert, who will soon have a Make It Right house of his own, tells Life & Style. “Brad made people realize they can put their lives back together.”

Without Brad, Melba says, she never would have been able to afford to return to the city she loves. “I thank God for him because he’s making this possible,” she says. “I’m glad God used him as a tool to help us.”

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