World Renew is one of eight organizations to receive grants this month from the American Red Cross for Super-storm Sandy response.
World Renew has been awarded $257,500 to fund volunteer assessment activities for long- term recovery committees in Sandy-related response areas. The assessments will help identify the most vulnerable people who are still in need of assistance in some areas of New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. “World Renew DRS has been very active in Sandy response on the East Coast since the storm hit last October,” says Bill Adams, director of Disaster Response Services (DRS). “This grant will go a long way toward helping people get the assistance they need to start to put their lives back together.”
World Renew is one of eight organizations to receive grants this month from the American Red Cross for Super-storm Sandy response.
World Renew has been awarded $257,500 to fund volunteer assessment activities for long- term recovery committees in Sandy-related response areas. The assessments will help identify the most vulnerable people who are still in need of assistance in some areas of New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. “World Renew DRS has been very active in Sandy response on the East Coast since the storm hit last October,” says Bill Adams, director of Disaster Response Services (DRS). “This grant will go a long way toward helping people get the assistance they need to start to put their lives back together.”
Super-storm Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and the second most destructive hurricane in US history. Sandy landed just south of Atlantic City on October 29, 2012, and merged with a “Northeaster” that was blowing along the coast. As a result, seaside residents in New Jersey, New York City, and Long Island, NY, were devastated. At one point areas of Manhattan, Staten Island, and other boroughs were completely shut down by flooding and power outages. More than a hundred people were died in the US.
“Recovery from a storm of this size takes time and help from many different organizations,” Jerry DeFrancisco, president of humanitarian services at the Red Cross said in an August 14 press release. “….We can help people and communities in a more comprehensive way when we pool our resources and services together in a coordinated way.”
Within in a few days of the storm, World Renew DRS early assessment coordinators and rapid response teams were assisting survivors by meeting with homeowners, cleaning flooded homes, removing downed trees, and finding food and lodging for themselves at churches and seminaries along the way. At the same time, World Renew began to work with government agencies, local recovery organizations, and Reformed Church in America (RCA) and other responders to begin longer-term work after the massive storm.
In January 2013 World Renew, working closely with the Church World Services Emergency Response Team and its member denominations, facilitated two weeks of training workshops on planning long-term recovery for 700 local recovery workers in communities across New York and New Jersey. In addition, 20 RCA congregations that were directly affected by the storm have been providing financialand material donations and volunteers to the recovery effort.
By March 2013, World Renew was actively supporting long-term recovery committees in Bergen, Monmouth, and Middlesex counties in New Jersey with start-up grants. The organization also began sending out short-term groups from an ongoing resource pool of about 3,000 volunteers to help residents clean up their homes and start some initial repairs. More than 150 of World Renew’s trained volunteers have already reached 19,000 Sandy-affected residents in New Jersey, New York, and Maryland to assess their recovery needs. Efforts in Union County, New Jersey, areas of Connecticut, and other locations are also anticipated.
By the end of 2013, World Renew DRS plans to open two or three long-term construction sites in severalof the more-damaged, lower-income communities hit by Sandy. These sites will be populated by skilled volunteer groups on a rotating basis. The first site opens in September in Manahawkin, New Jersey.“Hurricane Sandy recovery will go on for some time,” Adams says, “but with the collaboration of the Red Cross, the RCA, local recovery committees, and many other organizations, we are confident that we can continue to help survivors restore their homes and lives with material help that makes God’s love for them visible.”
-by Beth DeGraff, World Renew Communications
