Tell President Bush That Worldwide Poverty Matters
Robert Funk

Church World Service Hurricane Katrina Relief Plan

Church World Service "is the relief, development, and refugee assistance ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations in the United States."  The agency has outlined their goals for Hurricane Katrina relief and need your prayers and donations.  Please take a moment to read about their efforts and do what you can to help.

This Church World Service appeal will address the hurricane's damages to communities and lives through meeting immediate needs, organizing for long-term recovery at multiple faith community levels, and will address the relocation of individuals across the country in concert with other state, federal and CWS programmatic partners.

This appeal requests collective funding for three program components of Church World Service activity that will assure development of effective, sustainable long-term recovery. The appeal will support: Response; Recovery; Relocation; Spiritual and Emotional Care; and CWS Tools of Hope in the form of blankets and kits.

I. Response

Church World Service Disaster Response and Recovery Liaisons (DRRLs) are actively working in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, to support and help formulate the long-term responses to the extraordinary nature of the disaster. In all, 10 DRRLs anticipate deployment to support and enable the organizing work for community long-term recovery.

Church World Service DRRLs and senior New York staff will work closely with leadership of state councils/conferences of churches in their efforts to bring about coordinated or collaborative activities of the faith community across the affected states, particularly in relationship to relocation activities.

Church World Service will also provide support to media and publicity efforts utilizing its own staff and the staff of Disaster News Network, to appropriately raise the public awareness of the role of the faith community efforts in the relief and recovery programs.

DRRL Deployment Costs (support, travel and materials for 12 deployed staff) $170,000

On-Call DRRL Stipends (6 persons @ approx. 8 weeks @ $150 per day) $50,000

Church World Service support of media efforts $10,000

Total $230,000

II. CWS Blankets and "Gift of the Heart" Kits

To date, Church World Service has shipped more than $300,000 in donated material assistance to affected areas, including 18,100 CWS Blankets; 14,335 "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits; 1,000 "Gift of the Heart" School Kits; and 500 CWS Heart-to-Heart Kids Kits. Shipments have arrived in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Shipments of donated material resources we have in inventory, for support of sheltered survivors in states across the country, are currently being processed or anticipated. CWS has also processed a shipment of 20 Interchurch Medical Assistance Medicine Boxes to Louisiana. Additional lightweight blankets will need to be purchased to allow us to respond to anticipated requests.

Inventory of 39,000 lightweight CWS Blankets valued at: $195,000

Inventory of 150,000 Health Kits valued at $1,800,000

Inventory of 4,000 School Kits valued at $44,000

Purchase and shipment of 20,000 lightweight blankets (at $5) $100,000

Expedited air freight for initial response $50,000

Total $150,000

III. Recovery

Age, health, education, economics, ethnicity, religious heritage, gender and geographic location all serve to increase vulnerability and diminish capacity to recovery from a disaster. DRRLs will concentrate organizing activity in areas where significant numbers of vulnerable survivors have been identified to help assure that their unmet needs are identified and given priority. Church World Service will support and encourage the research and training of community leadership to effectively organize new and diverse communities for long-term recovery.

CWS DRRLs work with local faith groups and religious leaders to equip them in development of, and participation in, long-term recovery organizations that provide case management services for vulnerable survivors of a disaster. The case management is designed to help families resource their recovery plan, particularly in rebuilding and repairing their homes. Based on previous disasters, CWS estimates as many as 25 recovery organizations may be developed to respond to the “normal” affects of the hurricane, that of damaged and destroyed homes because of wind and flooding.

Community Organizing Training Consultants $20,000

Seed Grants for developing long-term recovery organizations (20 @ $5,000) $100,000

Sustainability Grants for long-term recovery staff and administration (3-5 years) $3,500,000

Home reconstruction grants to long-term recovery organizations $3,500,000

Total $ 7,120,000

III. Spiritual Care and Care-for-Caregivers

Spiritual and emotional care will be of primary concern in coming months and years for those who are directly and indirectly affected. Church World Service will particularly focus on support for clergy and lay caregivers who are ministering in the early days of relief and rescue; the support of relocating operations in their communities and states; and a continuum of care for long-term recovery. CWS stands ready to offer local faith leaders: 1) training opportunities and support through the Interfaith Trauma Response Training (ITRT) that helps equip them for care within their communities and self care for themselves; and 2) trauma care through its Spiritual and Emotional Care Response (SECR) cadre of volunteer professional counselors. Both programs were developed during recovery after the September 11 disaster.

Church World Service DRRL with high expertise in disaster emotional and spiritual care will supplement and support the development of a national strategy for provision of appropriate care in shelters, relocation communities, and for public operations such as morgue and death notification.

Deployment of SECR Professional Trauma Intervention (3 years) $750,000

Provision of ITRT sessions (1.5 years) $750,000

DRRL Assignment to emotional and spiritual care provision (3 years) $12,000

Total $1,512,000

IV. Relocation

CWS proposes to organize and execute a processing and relocation program for Americans who remain displaced as result of evacuations and destruction of housing in their communities. CWS will utilize existing resettlement affiliate offices in 8 sites around the United States and initiate two sites where groups of churches will be organized to support the relocation of up to 500 displaced Americans or roughly, 165 families, over the initial period of three months. The initial phase of this support will focus on existing affiliates that have already received uprooted families. The budget below assumes a significant amount of supplemental cash and/or in-kind resources will be contributed from the local community to the affiliate or congregation for the purpose of assisting displaced Americans. A full proposal and budget is available for this aspect of the Church World Service Katrina response.

The cost for provision of services and support for 500 persons for 3 months is slightly higher than an average of $1,000 per person:

Transportation (average of $100 per person) $50,000

Rent ( average of $1,000 per month) $165,000

Airport/Bus Stop Reception (average of $50 per family for transport of belongings) $8,250

Utilities (average $350 per month) $57,750

Local transportation (public transportation passes at $200 per family) $33,000

Money for living expenses (dignity stipend $100 per month per family) $49,500

Food (supplementary to local provisions $100 per month) $16,500

Local community staffing and travel, office, and materials expenses $86,800

National contingency, travel, staffing, equipment $ 46,475

(This is preliminary budget for this support. Additional support may be required if additional numbers of families or individuals seek this assistance.)

Total $ 513,275

TOTAL OF FOUR COMPONENTS: $9,525,275

EMERGENCY APPEAL:

CWS is issuing this appeal (#6280 - Hurricane Katrina Response) to support the recovery activities described above.

Contributions to support these efforts may be sent to your denomination or directly to:

Church World Service
Hurricane Katrina Response -- #6280
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, IN 46515

Contributions may also be made by credit card by calling: (800) 297-1516, ext. 222, or online.

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