January's Monthly Report

JANUARY MONTHLY REPORT

This New Year brought lots of changes. We have said good bye to Amanda, our part time case manger, although she stills share office space with us as she continues her work with The Empowerment Alliance of South West Florida. In addition, our Executive Director has gone to part time also working part time for The United Way of Lee, Hendry and Glades.
Our LTRO (Long Term Recovery Organization) and Unmet Needs meeting is now on the 4th Thursdays of the month. Our Board of Directors meeting is on the Monday of the prior week. Both meetings are held at Hendry Regional Medical Center.

Our Board of Directors has also undergone some changes. We had elections this month it is our pleasure to thank our board members who continue to give us great advise and help, and welcome our new board members. We are looking forward to doing great things with our new Board. Pastor Thom Street of First United Methodist Church in Moorehaven is our new Board President. He has formerly served as our Glades County Representative. He also oversees the Glades county part of our UMCOR funds. Pastor Angel Ramos of the Community Presbyterian Church is our new Vice President. He previously served as our President. He also represents us and assists us with the funds we receive from PDA. Scott Jones, a civil engineer for Johnson and Prewitt continues to serve as our Treasurer. We welcome Sarah Hammock, who has a degree in Accounting and will be running the new Glades County First Bank when it opens will serve as our Secretary. We also welcome Craig Cudworth, CEO of Hendry Regional Medical Center to our Board as well. He brings a wealth of experience to the table. We are sorry to say good bye to Pastor David McClusky, who in addition to being the new pastor at Calvary Baptist in Clewiston, also serves as the education coordinator for Hendry Regional Medical Center. We look forward to continuing to work with him, even though he is no longer serving on our board.
Although we are no longer funded to help with the FEMA close out project, we have continued to do so. We are still trying to find funding for three clients we had hoped to get from the City but have been unable to do so.

As of January 31st in Hendry County 82 cases have been assigned to case managers who have updated recovery plans in all of these cases. There are 10 cases assigned to a case manager that are pending documentation before they are officially opened.
In Glades County, 7 cases have been assigned to case managers and 8 of these have updated recovery plans completed or in the process of completion. There are 3 cases assigned to a case manager that are pending documentation before they are officially opened. To date there are 0 unassigned cases.

This department currently has 3 full time and 1 part time case managers that are reviewing case information. Case managers are contacting clients to get needed documentation quickly. They are also helping with contacting clients for the Mitigation Program on a weekly basis.
Although we still work with The Empowerment Alliance of South West Florida, and provide offer space to one of their employees, we are, as of December 31st, no longer sharing a staff member with them, as our funding has run out. The Empowerment Alliance of SW Florida is working on getting her more permanent funding.

The partnership between Means to Recovery (Red Cross) has come to a close. The Red Cross has directly assisted 23 of clients for a total of $203,060.20.
Since March, C.R.E.W. has been working with FEMA, Hendry County, and the City of Clewiston to find suitable housing solutions for FEMA clients still housed in FEMA units as of April 24, 2004. Originally, FEMA gave C.R.E.W. a list of 65 families whom FEMA believed would be in need of additional assistance. Additionally, the city of Clewiston supplied a list of approximately 20 other families residing in FEMA mobile homes on non conforming lots inside Clewiston City Limits. Of these cases, C.R.E.W. was able to help the majority of these families find permanent housing solutions. We have been unable to close 24 of these cases. Three of these are in need of funding that we expected but did not receive. The rest are either waiting on permits, in the process of being set up, or waiting for the families to raise the money needed to transfer their titles.

Our construction coordinator has assessed 5 jobs (all in Hendry). In addition he completed 9 material cost quotes for Catholic Charities. He has also assisted in research and planning for the upcoming rebuild. He supervised one volunteer this month. He also completed a material inventory and did completed quotes for materials we had and will need of the rebuild.
The total cost of projects completed this month was $87.00.

A laser jet printer valued at $25.00 and a sectional sofa valued at $100 were donated, picked up and delivered by CREW staff members to CREW clients this month as well. Hendry Regional Medical Center donated space for our unmet needs meeting and meals for 14 of our staff, volunteers, and friends. We value this at $42.00.

We had one local youth volunteer 8.5 hours for an in-kind donation of $159.37. We also had three local volunteers at our unmet needs meeting for in-kind donation of $56.25.

Total volunteer hours donated: 11.5 Total In Kind donations: $382.62

We have a volunteer group, Manassas St. Thomas UMC, coming from Virginia on February 23, 2008 and working on the rebuild for a week. They will be hosted by FUMC of Clewiston. March 1, 2008 thru March 8, 2008 we have a Lutheran group coming from Seattle Washington to work on the rebuild; they will be staying at the Community Presbyterian Church while they are here, after they leave we have another group the Lutheran Laymen’s League from North Dakota is sending a group to help complete the rebuild, I have asked the First Baptist Church to host this group and I am waiting for verification.

This department currently has 3 full time and 1 half time case managers funded by UMCOR that are reviewing case information. Case managers are contacting clients to get needed documentation quickly. They are also helping with contacting clients for the Mitigation Program on a weekly basis. We were sad to loose one of our half time case managers this month; Amanda who was has been with CREW longer than any of our current employees. We also said Good bye to Edie, who had run the VFF Close out Program.

In the month of January there have been 0 new applicants for mitigation. There are 90 clients entered in the Hurricane Relief Database, 10 are needed to complete the contract amount. Since December, CREW had received 13 more inspection reports that have been given to our current contractors (CAT 5 & Alufab). In the month of January there were 8 more home completed by Alufab. The total cost to complete theses homes was $16,245.00. CREW has now completed a total of 23 homes. The total amount allowed for each home is $3000 thus usually costing $69,000.00. CREW completed these homes for a cost of only $43,287.80. We hope to have 73 completed by the end of the month. We are trying to get the remaining 9 clients by going door to door and advertising in the paper and on the radio. We also will be having a booth at the Hendry County Fair where we will be promoting the program this month as well.

This month we met with Hendry County’s new building inspector, Bob Ott. It was wonderful to meet him and he provided CREW with some great resources, and we look forward to working with him this year. We have continued to work with the Family Services Network for our two counties. This month, our Director and shared employee with United Way met with First United Methodist Church in Moorehaven and a representative of Harry Chapin Food Bank to see how we could help those needing food in Glades County and to discuss the possibility of expanding the churches current program. Our Director also did two presentations for the Southwest District of the United Methodist Women about CREW and raised $175.00 in doing so. Our director also met with Susan J. Meister, of Gulf Coast Communications for UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief). She has been writing for the agencies newsletter Bright Spots about the damage from Katrina and Rita, but came and interviewed us and many of our clients and we look forward to reading her article on http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/emergencies/ongoing/hurricane2005/brightspots/. Our director also met with CRWRC (Christian Reformed World Relief Church) volunteers who are working in Belle Glade and Pahokee, for a neighboring LTRO, this month for dinner for which the First United Methodist of Church of Clewiston hosted them. Furthermore, our director served as a volunteer for the Homeless Coalition, assisting them in completing Point- In-Time surveys on the homeless with the Hendry County SHIP coordinator and Empowerment Alliance of SW Florida staff.

Financially, we brought in $53,467.88 this month. $6,176.22 went into the general account. $350 was credited to the mitigation account. $2,291.66 was credited to the PDA account. $45,000 was credited to the UMCOR account. We spent $43,413.65 this month. We spent $565.92 on advertising, $9,595.86 to pay contractors, $111.34 on staff appreciation lunches and lunches for our funders, $38.73 on fundraising activities, $110.00 on gas, $56.10 on licenses and taxes, $300.84 on mileage, $325.19 on office supplies, $29,072.96 on payroll, $1,724.53 on payroll taxes, $68.76 on postage, $485.30 on telephones, $12.84 on the truck, and $954.28 on work team expenses including supplies.

We have $27,971.46 left in our CRWRC account, although most of this has been earmarked for upcoming jobs in February and March. We have a -$25,845.12 in the FEMA account, but are expecting a check to zero that out in February. We have $5,358.13 in the Gala account which needs to be used out the Lutheran account of -$1995.47, and the remainder put in the general account. We have $7069.72 in the general account. We have $5, 378.47 in our mitigation account. We have $14,529.35 in our NFL account which needs to be used to zero out the VFF 3 account which has -$6,163.09 and the rest placed in our general account. We have $3992.03 in our PDA account. We have $2795.00 in our Rotary account. UMCOR Clewiston account has $45,027.55 in it and UMCOR Moorehaven has $47,290.87.

Looking ahead, we are raising money to do a rebuild in February. We are also applying for grants including Hurricane awareness grants. We are planning a fundraiser in April. We are still awaiting response from grant requests to PDA and Lutherans.

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS AND FUNDS!!!!

We need volunteers who can help repair homes, but also need volunteers to assist in the office, as well to help work booths at the upcoming fairs and festivals throughout Hendry and Glades Counties. We are currently in need of a shredder that can handle the amount of shredding necessary to keep our clients information confidential.

You can also help by simply shopping through the iGive portal and registering CREW as your charity of choice. Simply visit the link below to do so. http://www.iGive.com/html/refer.cfm?memberid=324218&causeid=35958

Donations can be sent to 352 W. Arcade Ave., Clewiston, Florida 33440. We are a registered non-profit and donations are tax deductible. Call Renee to volunteer at (863) 983-2390.