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January/February 2020 | Issue 1

Jenny Gannaway

Executive Director

West Virginia VOAD

From the Executive Director

The dawn of a new year and decade has found WV VOAD both busy and productive. As always, when disaster strikes, we stand ready to respond to our neighbors in all 55 counties. Last week, when flooding threatened the entire state, WV VOAD joined the American Red Cross and other agencies at the State Emergency Operation Center to respond to potential need. When needs were made known, we collaborated with WV Conference United Methodist Church and the WV Council of Churches to fulfill them.

Three new committees are up and running thanks to the Board who assisted me in establishing objectives and approving members. The Spiritual and Emotional Care, Mass Care and Long-Term Recovery Committees will facilitate more efficient response when service is needed. Watch for in-depth information on their goals and objectives in a later newsletter.

We are still deeply entrenched in the State’s recovery from 2016 devastation. First, WV VOAD, as a CDBG-DR subrecipient grantee, is providing case management as well as building bridges and homes through Rise WV. Four Outreach Events were held this month which yielded 43 new applications for assistance in this program which will continue for the next three years.

WV VOAD also continues to coordinate recovery completion for several flood survivors who were ineligible for the Rise WV program by collaborating with member organizations, national and local funders, long-term recovery committees, and of course, VOLUNTEERS! We look forward to dedicating these projects soon.

Speaking of VOLUNTEERS…they are the life blood of everything we are doing. We welcome your teams and individuals who would like to serve in West Virginia as we work through the remaining few hundred recovery plans from 2016 in twelve counties. Just email us at Volunteer@wvvoad.org for information.

Read on for project updates, Volunteer Spotlights and more good news. As always, we look forward to serving alongside our members and partners!

Jenny

Upcoming Events

Mark your calendar for 2020

Quarterly Meetings:

MARCH 3, 2020

JUNE 2, 2020 (Annual Meeting)

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

DECEMBER 1, 2020

All Quarterly meetings are held at:

St. Thomas Catholic Church, 624 Kanawha Street, Gassaway WV 26624

10:00 am - 2:00 pm; Lunch is served

Emotional & Spiritual Care Committee

March 30, 2020; 10 am

Mass Care Committee

April 8, 2020; 1 pm

DHSEM Training

April 14, 2020; 8-12

Long Term Recovery Committee

April 14, 2020; 2 pm

NVOAD Conference :

May 18-21, 2020

MDS Service Spotlight

Project Managers Mike & Linda

MDS Project Managers Mike and Linda Stuckey, from Northwest Ohio are serving in West Virginia for the second time in three and a half years. When asked what compelled them to return, they agreed it was a combination of the opportunity to help people in need and the relationships made in the community during their previous trip. The couple epitomizes the MDS service value and for them it is a lifestyle. A question of the number of mission trips they had completed went unanswered, but a later comment disclosed at least four decades of service with MDS. In a happy coincidence, one of the house parents who supervised Mike and Linda’s first mission trip forty-two years ago served under Mike’s leadership in West Virginia in 2017 when he led a team of college students from Kansas. Mike will supervise the construction of five homes in Greenbrier County this spring.

MDSReturns to WV

In the three and a half years since West Virginia’s “Thousand Year” flood, West Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (WV VOAD) and its state and national member organizations have led the way in returning families to safe, sanitary and secure housing. The historic event caused the loss of twenty-three lives and destroyed over 1200 homes along with personal property, vehicles and businesses.

In the days following the 2016 disaster, many organizations arrived to participate in relief efforts, later later transitioning to assist in long term recovery.

One of the first on site was Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS), a volunteer network of Anabaptist churches “dedicated to responding in Christian love to natural and man-made disasters in the United States and Canada”. Since the early 1950’s, MDS has become a highly relied upon mainstay in disaster relief and recovery.

Initially, MDS established base camps in both Kanawha and Greenbrier County where they remained for approximately twenty-four months building and repairing homes as well as private bridges for flood survivors. The commitment to West Virginia’s recovery was punctuated by the acquisition of an abandoned church in Clendenin which has been converted to volunteer housing for the continual influx of MDS teams. In Greenbrier County, MDS set up camp at a Christian Retreat Center and Rhema Christian Center in Lewisburg, where they helped finish unused space for bunk rooms and showers.

In the fall of 2019, WV VOAD Executive Director Jenny Gannaway made a request to MDS leadership for them to return to West Virginia to help with the remaining construction projects. On January 4, 2020 MDS once again populated two base camps in Greenbrier and Kanawha counties. They have committed to help WV VOAD construct up to ten homes for Rise WV applicants by the end of March. Typically, each base camp will house a long-term core leadership team that includes the project manager, a cook, a driver and additional supervisors. Volunteer teams from multiple states and various Anabaptist congregations rotate every week over the next three months. Volunteers have visited from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas and Canada among other locations.

Since the day after the 2016 disaster MDS has made a tremendous impact in the Mountain State dispatching, to date, 2859 volunteers who have given nearly 17,500 days of service resulting in the completion of forty-one clean-up jobs, thirty-three home repairs, fifty-four rebuilds and sixty-one bridge replacements. Executive Director Jenny Gannaway remarks, “The State of West Virginia owes tremendous gratitude to MDS. Their work has and continues to make a significant impact on disaster recovery over many years. WV VOAD can only accomplish what it does because of long term partnerships like we have with MDS.” Three of the current MDS projects for Rise WV applicants are pictured below.

Current WV VOAD/MDS Projects for Rise WV Applicants

Greenbrier County

Nicholas County

Kanawha County

WV Conference of UMC Continues Flood Recovery Efforts

WV Conference of the United Methodist Church

Another WV VOAD partner who continues to be a driving force in 2016 flood recovery is the West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church which has had a Disaster Response Coordinator and Disaster Response Committee since 1978. This allowed the WVCUMC to quickly devise a conference wide strategy to confront the 2016 devastation under the direction of J.F. Lacaria. A team consisting of a Flood Recovery Director, Jack Lipphardt, two case managers, Miranda Nabors and Grace Mshisha, and two construction managers, Chad Faris and Buck Edwards, was formed in October 2016 and they haven’t stopped since.

The house pictured above is a partnership project between WVCUMC Disaster Recovery Team and MDS and will replace a destroyed home in Elkview. The two organizations have partnered on at least eight projects since the 2016 flood normally with the UMC assembling the funding package for materials and MDS providing construction labor. MDS’s Rodney Burkholder is active in recruiting and coordinating the teams that build these homes.

Since the 2016 flood, WVCUMC Recovery Team has spearheaded the repair of 120 homes and the replacement of 27 homes in seven counties. They have hosted 130 teams comprised of 1987 volunteers in the three and a half years since the disaster.

Rise WV Enrollment

WV VOAD held Rise WV outreach events in the four counties that sustained the most damage in in 2016 flooding to ensure that anyone with remaining needs is enrolled in the Rise WV housing and bridge restoration program. The Outreach Events, held in Clendenin, Maysel, Rainelle, White Sulphur Springs and Richwood, generated forty-three housing intakes and eighteen new bridge intakes from five counties. Case managers are assigned to lead each applicant through the Rise WV eligibility process. Potential applicants can also initiate the intake process by calling (304) 553-0927.

Visit Ready.gov for More Winter Safety Tips Like This!

Local Church Donates Food Kits

What’s better than a warm pot of beans on a cold winter’s day? That’s exactly what the parishioners of Village Chapel Presbyterian Church thought when they assembled over 300 meal kits made up of mixed dried beans, seasonings, bouillon and instructions. The generous donation was presented to WV VOAD employees by church member Amy Parker to be distributed through food panties, soup kitchens and churches to families in need.

West Virginia VOAD | www.wvvoad.org