THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009

Recovery Corps builds community resilience throughout Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, via funding provided by the American Red Cross’ Hurricane Recovery Program, has assisted disaster-impacted areas across the state in developing a renewed sense of community and social support by funding arts, wellness, and educational programs designed to address the emotional and spiritual needs of Louisiana citizens devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The Recovery Corps’ Building Community Resilience (BCR) program recently completed its second grant cycle and allocated a total of $3.5 million to 33 non-profit organizations to help re-establish community resilience and re-create legacies and neighborhood traditions that made so many communities across Louisiana so unique.

The Recovery Corps funded wellness, educational, and spiritual programming from Shreveport to Baton Rouge and Lake Charles to New Orleans with the intention of reducing the amount of depression and post-traumatic stress felt by Katrina- and Rita-impacted families while also re-establishing the social structures and activities to which so many generations had grown accustomed.

In addition to providing support networks to program participants, the Recovery Corps through its BCR program was able to help rebuild the capacities of the participating non-profit organizations that may have also experienced negative effects from the 2005 storms, bringing the many organizations together to work in unison in helping neighborhoods, communities, and social groups re-emerge throughout the state.

“While it is difficult to directly measure the specific outcomes that these types of programs provide, it is clear that building revitalized communities that residents are eager to come back to is a critical component of successful long-term human recovery,” said to Dr. Monteic A. Sizer, the President and CEO of the Recovery Corps. “While we most often focus on tangible items while on the path to recovery, spiritual and emotional support from community settings can furnish the extra drive to help residents feel an added level of comfort as they rebuild their lives in the wake of disaster.”

This second phase of the BCR program served a total of 37,534 people during 7,046 events hosted by 21 BCR grantees, bringing the program total for both phases to 39,294 participants at 9,309 events. Countless others were positively impacted from community outreach and public awareness campaigns funded via the BCR program which provided important educational and community-based messaging designed to further enhance the sense of community.

Specific areas focused on by the BCR grantees included mental health therapy and counseling; providing care to caregivers; educational and economic training for children; community arts activities to provide educational recreation and to promote literacy; after school programming services aimed at counseling, community integration, conflict resolution, and avoiding substance abuse; cultural programs for the residents of FEMA trailer parks; educational support for HIV-positive citizens; marriage counseling services including parenting and life skills for couples; cultural arts and afterschool programs for at-risk youth to encourage positive self expression and lessen anxiety through spoken word poetry, music, art, dance, and educational tutoring; and wellness workshops to prepare human service professionals residing in hurricane-impacted areas to self-identify and screen for disaster related mental distress and disorders and learn how to make appropriate referrals to mental health care.

The varied outreach approaches of the different agencies provided tremendous accessibility for disaster-impacted residents in their communities, allowing the program to touch a wide range of individuals and families.

“When catastrophic events such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita occur, entire communities can be destroyed and social support systems can be decimated,” Sizer added. “This was the case across Louisiana, where the storms wiped out entire neighborhoods and all of the intangible character and community pride that were associated with these unique areas. Thanks to the generous funding from the American Red Cross, we were able to work with our partner agencies to help re-establish hope and renew a sense of community for thousands across the state.”

The success of the Recovery Corps’ BCR program has contributed immensely to hundreds of disaster-impacted families’ abilities to begin or to sustain the path toward long term recovery.

Adrienne Davis of New Life Counseling and Health Centers, a BCR grantee that provided after school programming services aimed at counseling, community integration, conflict resolution, trauma recovery, and seminars for families in the Shreveport area said, “We are so thankful for the help with meeting the emotional and spiritual needs of those trying so hard to recover from the hurricanes. We feel it is essential to get people away from the day-to-day stress of the recovery process and remind them how enjoyable life can be.”

Those organizations receiving funding from the second phase of BCR grants are listed below, along with the amount of funding received:

• New Orleans Children’s Health Project: $50,000 (carried over from phase 1)
• Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, $129,917
• BR Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation, $50,000
• Bringing Hope to the Community, $132,500
• Family Center of Hope, $100,000
• Focus on Families, $85,000
• Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership, $130,000
• Greater St. Mary Community Development Foundation, $75,400
• Hope Worldwide, $99,830
• The Institute for Women’s and Ethnic Studies, $50,000
• Isaiah Institute of New Orleans, $115,000
• Joshua and Caleb Community Development, $156,000
• Louisiana Association for the Education of Homeless Children & Youth, $122,368
• Mental Health America of Louisiana, $148,302
• Mosque of the Merciful, $100,000
• New Life Counseling and Health Centers, $92,468
• No AIDS Task Force, $121,105
• Samaritan Counseling Center, $140,000
• Second Chance Marriage and Family Services, $85,000
• The YOUTHanasia Foundation, $75,000
• The Youth Empowerment Project, $37,000
• Vietnamese Initiatives in Economic Training, $38,000

To mark the end of the BCR program, the Recovery Corps and its partner agencies will celebrate their many stories of human recovery during a culminating event on Thursday, March 26, at the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge.

ABOUT THE RECOVERY CORPS
The Louisiana Family Recovery Corps is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation based in Baton Rouge, La., and formed in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The Recovery Corps’ mission is to facilitate human recovery for the State of Louisiana in the aftermath of disaster, both natural and man-made. The Recovery Corps has partnered with human service and non-profit organizations throughout the state and the country to deliver assistance as effectively and efficiently as possible, allocating more than $80 million to recovery efforts and assisting more than 30,000 households since January 2006.