Diocese lends financial helping hand to long-term recovery efforts

By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

HAVILAND – The more than $700,000 that has been donated to the Diocese of Dodge City and Catholic Social Service for tornado recovery is in good hands: hands led by faith, intent on making immediate and long-term differences to those most in need.

Each Tuesday in the basement of Haviland Friends Church, a team of 25 or 30 people – made up largely of leaders of faith-based organizations -- meet to share information, and to organize and ultimately implement solutions to both long-term and immediate needs for the people of Greensburg and the surrounding communities affected by the May 4 storms.

Their primary focus? Homes for the homeless; finding and organizing volunteer labor; providing food and water for recovery workers; and providing financial, spiritual and emotional aid to residents and workers.

This is the “Long-Term Recovery Committee;” it is led by Kathleen Blair, pastor of Wellsford Christian Church, and representatives of more than 20 charitable organizations, such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Way, and several faith denominations. Don and Ardis Pranger, a needs assessment team with Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, took to the road from their Michigan home to attend the meeting and determine how CRWRC could assist the committee and help them “expand their ability to help disaster survivors.”

Representing the Diocese of Dodge City is Debbie Snapp, executive director of Catholic Social Service.

It is this Long-Term Recovery Committee that will be providing the ways and means by which a good chunk of the more than $700,000 donated to the diocese over the past two-and-a-half months will be spent.

Of course it’s not just diocesan funds they are using. The group is helping allocate portions of funding raised by the United Way and several other organizations. It’s helping allocate money donated by a multitude, from checks for hundreds and thousands of dollars, to a $20 bill dropped off at the “recovery tent” from a tourist passing through Greensburg. It is using a data base system provided by “Lutheran Disaster Response” to handle 35 cases (and growing fast as people discover the committee) – each case representing an individual or family in some sort of need.

“As case managers bring cases to the table, agencies will be offering to help in different ways,” Snapp explained. “We are bringing our dollars to the table, and when there’s a need that can’t be met, our dollars will help.”

Most of the 35 cases that the committee has dealt with so far have been for those with basic emergency assistance needs, such as paying for prescriptions. But as the cases increase, those needs are sure to change as well. The cases were only introduced to the committee at their July 17 meeting, so it’s too early to say specifically how diocesan funds are being allocated. Snapp said they will ultimately support the wide variety of ways in which the committee is serving the people affected by the tornado.

“We’ll have to work to meet peoples’ immediate basic needs, but most dollars will be for long term recovery,” such as rebuilding homes Snapp said.

Lutheran Disaster Response case worker Julie Hillshafer said that for some Greensburg residents – as well as those of surrounding communities affected by the storm -- the insurance policy they took out on their house provided only a fraction of the cost to rebuild. She should know; she lost her home in the tornado.

“I bought my house for $30,000,” she said. “I can’t begin to rebuild for that. We help people rebuild that difference. We help them in the whole process of rebuilding the house from the ground up.”

Some houses need only to be repaired, she said, but for those that need complete reconstruction, families that qualify are given five architectural plans to choose from, or they can supply their own plans. “There are cases where they only need a washer and dryer,” she said. “We also offer spiritual and emotional guidance. Every case is unique.”

The money donated to the Diocese of Dodge City has also gone to supplement the generous donation by the Catholic Extension Society to help purchase and construct the temporary St. Joseph Church, located on the same lot as the church destroyed in the tornado.