By Jay Rollins | Exec. Director of Regional and National Relations
The St. Croix Long-Term Recovery Group (LTRG) is a cooperative body that is made up of representatives from faith-based, non-profit, government, business and other organizations working within St. Croix to assist individuals and families as they recover from Hurricane Maria. The goal of the LTRG is to unite recovery resources with community needs in order to ensure that even the most vulnerable in the community recover from the disaster.
Construct and Rebuild: Homes, Safety, Joy, Relief
In this reporting quarter, we used $70,260.65 USD of GlobalGiving funds to purchase building materials for homes. We were also pleased to celebrate the one-year anniversary of St. Croix receiving volunteer construction/rebuild teams. This milestone represents 478 volunteers, 30,176 volunteer labor hours, 37 total groups, and 50 homes completed! We have 78 homes in the queue, so the work is only just beginning. Special thanks are given to our member partner Lutheran Disaster Response for leading this project.
One important aspect of this program is the “Final Nail Service.” Upon completion of a home, the volunteers, staff, neighbors, and homeowners gather for a ceremony where the homeowner symbolically drives the “final nail” into their completed home. These ceremonies are full of emotion: joy, relief, gratitude, and praise. They symbolize the first major step in a beneficiary returning to a “normal” life. We are grateful to our volunteer teams from the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission for introducing this practice to the LTRG. (Our homeowners love it too!)
Disaster Case Management - No Closed Cases Until Recovery is Complete!
Disaster Case Management (DCM) is the key for LTRGs to provide this much-needed assistance to individuals and households across the island. Each manager works with up to 80 cases at a time to ensure that every beneficiary is not inadvertently receiving duplicate benefits from FEMA, has connections to available resources on the island, and refers to the LTRG’s Unmet Needs Committee when resources are not available. Unlike other programs, Disaster Case Managers do not close a case until the client is completely recovered and has a sustainable action plan for thriving post-recovery.
With the loss of Federal funding to cover the expense of this program, the LTRG has pieced together funds through grants from various philanthropic sources—including GlobalGiving. We are pleased to announce that the $50,000 USD monies have allowed us to hire an additional DCM, Ms. Ahria O’Bryan. She has now been on-boarded and is up to 30 cases.
We are grateful to our National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) partner, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, for providing DCM training to ALL active DCMs in the territory. And we are also grateful to GlobalGiving for an additional grant to support this program. Recently, the new grant was recognized at the Clinton Global Initiative by Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton for GlobalGiving’s commitment to this work.
Unmet Needs Committee: Filling Critical Needs
As mentioned above, the Unmet Needs Committee fills a critical role in disaster recovery. When a DCM has exhausted all resources available to a beneficiary, and needs are still not met, then the Unmet Needs Committee steps in to fill the gap.
In this reporting quarter, the Unmet Needs Committee has completed the online portal for case intake. This portal, unique to St. Croix, allows DCMs to anonymously upload cases for review—preserving the dignity of the beneficiary and allowing the funders to make unbiased decisions. The $50,000 USD monies from GlobalGiving will begin to be expensed in the following quarter to address some of the needs of the 9 cases that have now been referred.
Building a Better Future
Some survivors affected by the hurricanes do not meet the eligibility criteria for government disaster aid programs or will continue to have unmet needs even after receiving the maximum amount of help from the disaster recovery programs. This is where recovery groups come into play. LTRGs are locally-based teams that are committed to seeing the islands through to full recovery. The groups are helping Virgin Islanders remove debris, feed their families, and make repairs to their homes.
LTRGs will continue to bring people together to support grassroots recovery efforts and find solutions for some of the major challenges Virgin Islanders face after the disasters. Together with GlobalGiving, we will achieve this!
By Jay Rollins | Executive Director
By Jamilah Henry | Grants Manager
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