St. Croix Foundation CARE Fund

Since just days after Hurricane Maria’s devastating landfall on St. Croix, St. Croix Foundation has been on the ground leveraging partnerships and philanthropic resources to help our island community recover.

In the weeks and months immediately following the disaster, the Foundation focused on coordinating and facilitating front-line relief efforts that supported residents and the crucial nonprofit organizations who serve them. Through collaboration designed to maximize the impact of limited resources, the Foundation’s front-line relief efforts focused on assessing and meeting critical, sometimes life-saving, needs.

The Foundation’s first report, submitted approximately two and a half months after the disaster, highlighted the launch of our most immediate strategies including facilitating the shipment and distribution of hundreds of thousands of pounds of food, water, clothing, baby supplies and medical supplies and sponsoring the shipment and security of over 117,847 pounds of critical relief supplies.

And, thanks to early contributions to the CARE Fund from generous supporters like you from near and far, the Foundation’s work during the immediate relief stage continued through the first 100 days after the disaster and included:

• Completing our Needs Assessment Survey with 1,046 individuals and households impacted by the disaster. As a product of this initiative, we processed 353 referrals for 273 individuals resulting in eligible residents becoming registered for public assistance, receiving critical supplies for health and wellbeing including replacements for durable medical equipment that had been damaged by the storm, food, household and baby supplies, tarps, solar lights and more. The data will also more broadly inform the community-wide dialogue about next steps in the recovery process.
• Distributing 17 electric generators, collectively worth over $10,000, for families still living without power more than 90 days after the storm. The recipients of generators distributed by the Foundation were individuals with medical conditions that are exacerbated by the absence of electricity or which require electricity to manage—such as those on oxygen or those whom need electricity to operate a hospital bed. Other recipients included families with low-income and other conditions necessitating electricity for the welfare of young children and seniors.
• Sponsoring Farmers in Action’s Crucian Coconut Festival to serve as a positive community gathering for all ages where resiliency could be embraced and local culture celebrated in the aftermath of the disaster. FEMA was able to leverage this opportunity to share information with residents about rebuilding stronger homes and, in cooperation with the University of the Virgin Islands, three educational workshops focused on agricultural sustainability were held ranging from the nutritional value of the coconut to intercropping using the coconut palm; and three cooking demonstrations introduced how the coconut can be used in meals, drinks and desserts.
• Stabilizing nonprofit organizations on St. Croix that provide critical social and cultural services to individuals, families, and our community, the Foundation provided office space, free of charge, to nonprofit organizations displaced by Hurricane Maria including Boys and Girls Club and the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Council. This contribution of free rent, worth $3,375 over four and a half months, enabled these crucial providers to continue serving our community at a critical time in the relief and recovery process.
• Convening nonprofit and public sector partners including FEMA, Voluntary Agencies Active in Disaster (VOAD), Red Cross, Danish Emergency Management Agency, and many others to facilitate collaborative community-wide relief efforts.

Long Term Resiliency
We understand that recovering from a catastrophic natural disaster is a marathon, not a sprint. St. Croix Foundation has our sleeves rolled up for the long road ahead and has now shifted our focus to strategies centered on long term recovery and resiliency. The Foundation’s current long-term recovery work, supported by your generosity to the CARE Fund, includes:

• Launching our Hurricane Recovery CARE Grant this February, which will provide strategic grants to St. Croix based nonprofit organizations and charitable initiatives that offer programs and direct services targeting the most vulnerable and underserved populations affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The Foundation will be awarding grants for projects that will support nonprofit organizations as they strive to return their operations to pre-hurricane conditions. Funding priority will be given to organizations focusing on impacting (1) development of services and/or programs, (2) capacity building to allow expansion of existing services, and (3) reconstruction of facilities necessary for conducting programs that directly relate to the needs of hurricane victims or recovery.

• Securing $272,000 in grant funding from philanthropic partners for nonprofit organizations on St. Croix including Lutheran Social Services, Women’s Coalition of St. Croix, Red Cross, St. Croix Montessori, and Boys and Girls Club.

• Launching the Nonprofit Disaster Recovery and Capacity Survey, as a follow up to the initial nonprofit damages assessment to assess the long-term impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria on St. Croix’s vital nonprofit sector. The data gathered will inform strategic investments geared towards ensuring that nonprofit organizations are able to rise to the level of increased demand and need in our community post-disaster.

• Partnering closely with and supporting the work of the St. Croix Long-term Recovery Group, a coalition of civic, nonprofit, and faith-based organizations who will leverage volunteers and philanthropic resources to conduct disaster case management, provide resources to address critical unmet needs experienced by individuals after all public assistance has been exhausted, and help rebuild people’s homes who will otherwise slip through the cracks.

• Convening a team of local building experts including architects, engineers, and general contractors to assess factors which lead to life threatening structural failures such as roofs that were lost or walls which collapsed during the storm. In collaboration with other stakeholders, this team will make recommendations to policymakers inform updates to building codes and a community education campaign geared towards helping residents rebuild sustainably and strategically.

Having sought for many years to bring greater awareness to the needs and vulnerabilities of the U.S. Caribbean, the hurricanes, while devastating, have opened windows of opportunities and new partnerships that were seemingly inaccessible to us prior. Today, as we move into the intermediate and long-term phases of our hurricane recovery efforts we are focusing attention and resources on equity and sustainability.

Now more than ever, your support of the CARE Fund is making an impact on the lives of those who call St. Croix home. We’re in this together, and in partnership with you, we will help our community recover, rebuild, and thrive.