Hurricane season has begun! May flowers bloomed, just as CREW has this month!
We continue to help the clients still struggling in FEMA trailers. We did attend public meeting with City, trailer park owners and residents living in FEMA trailers (most who do not have applications with CREW) and encouraged those residents to apply with us. Only 3 of these 21 families have come in to apply. The City has agreed to fund the three clients we had been discussing with them, paying the contractor directly. We are just waiting for this process to be completed.
Volunteers continue to be our greatest resource. On May 3, 2008, Eastlake United Methodist Church from Palm Harbor, Florida came and worked on tearing out some damaged vinyl flooring and replacing it. This group also repaired some drywall in the bathroom. The group consisted of 6 men and 1 woman. The group arrived on Friday night and stayed at the First United Methodist Church of Clewiston. They worked all day on Saturday and were able to complete the entire drywall repair and half of the flooring. The group ranged in age from 56 to 84. All were Caucasian except one male who is Indian. The group donated a total of 48 hours.
On May 21, 2008 we had two ladies from Largo, Florida come and help with finishing some of the drywall at Pamela Hopper’s home. These two ladies worked all day on Thursday and managed to get a lot of the finishing completed and another coat of compound spread on the drywall. These two ladies were both in their 50’s and were Caucasian. They were housed at the Calvary Baptist Church Parrish and were fed Wednesday night by the First United Methodist Church. These two ladies donated a total of 16 hours.
On May 22, 2008 CREW had its monthly Long Term Recovery Meeting and had 6 volunteers consisting of 3 men and 3 women attend. These volunteers gave an hour each of their time. They ranged in age from 24 to 62. The group was fed a meal by the Hendry Regional Medical Center. The group donated 6 total hours.
We had individual volunteer do 6 assessments for CREW he donated 3 hours on May 28, 2008 and 3 hours on May 29, 2008, for a total of 6 hours.
Total hours donated: 76 Total In Kind donations: $1425.00
Total in kind donated from the churches for meals and housing and meeting room: $256.00
As of May 31st, we have 72 cases that have been assigned to case mangers who have updated recovery plans, 61 of these are in Hendry County, 11 in Glades. 22 cases are assigned a case manager and are pending documentation from the client before they can be officially opened, 19 of these are in Hendry County, 2 in Glades.
We were able to successfully close 4 cases in Hendry County with all of the clients’ needs being met. There are no unassigned cases in either county. We have referred 13 cases to Centro Campesino this month, 10 from Hendry and 3 from Glades.
Total overall open cases: 72 Total pending documentation: 19
As for the Mitigation program, 78 homes have been mitigated. There are 14 clients in progress with our current contractor Alufab. Only 3 more clients are awaiting inspection reports from the state. A total of $208,894.40 has been spent in our effort to complete 100 homes in the Hendry and Glades County areas. There have been several instances where progress was stagnated and problems occurred. VFF will no longer coordinate the mitigation program, which results in a deadline of June 30, 2008 for all homes to be completed. The Department of Financial Services will be assuming all duties of the Mitigation Program therefore CREW does not know what new changes will come into affect. CREW will continue in its effort to mitigate 100 or more homes in the Hendry and Glades Counties.
Our LTRO (Long Term Recovery Organization) and Unmet Needs meeting is on the 4th Thursdays of the month. There were no new cases to present. We reviewed 35 cases, most of which we are either awaiting volunteers, funding or both. 4 cases were closed at this meeting.
Our Board of Directors meeting is on the Monday of the prior week. We did not meet this month, as we did not have quorum.
Grants were submitted to CVS and the Shell Foundation; one should not expect good results, but hope for them. Both of these agencies will usually only fund Global charities.
We also lost our web site this month. This happens as we don’t pay for it. Trish will look about this month and see about creating one on another free site, perhaps My Space, there is a great area for non-profits there.
Trish was re-elected to serve as an officer of Florida VOAD at the Governor’s Conference. All of the staff rolled up their sleeves and re-organized and inventoried the shed this month. Trish and Renee attended the 16th annual VOAD conference in Little Rock, Arkansas where they received training on a variety of issues related to our LTRO, as well as meeting contacts from which we can get more volunteers and possible sources of funding. They also attended the Florida Governor’s Hurricane Conference in Ft. Lauderdale the following week. Trish participated in the Untied Way’s Allocation process for Hendry and Glades Counties this month as well.
Our beginning balance this month was $55,880.07. We brought in $63,301.12 and spent $50,608.32. it should be noted however that these amounts have yet to be reconciled by accountant.
Balances for various accounts as of April 30th are as follows:
- $4,113.06 2nd annual fundraiser (all monies in, we can not revert to general)
- -$2,756.57 CRWRC (this needs to be zeroed out using general funds)
- $5,759.79 general funds
- $24,376.71 mitigation
- -$412.80 PDA Administrative funds (waiting on check)
- $1,719.80 PDA Volunteer Coordinator funds
- $51,921.25 UMCOR Clewiston
- $4,699.56 UMCOR Moorehaven
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. We desperately need a shredder and a volunteer to help shred the backload of paperwork, since our shredder died.
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.
Visit our blog site to learn more about what we are up to and to see pictures. http://huricanerecovery.blogspot.com/
Please feel free to check out our calendar of events to see when volunteers are coming and find out what our staff members are up to! http://calendar.msn.com/trishadamslcsw@hotmail.com
