Thanks to a $1 million grant from the American Red Cross, the nonprofit Corporation to Develop Communities of Tampa is launching an initiative to help underserved areas.
The program is called the Tampa Bay Long-Term Disaster Recovery Center Initiative and will have three centers with “navigators” to help people find the resources they need.
The CDC of Tampa is partnering with the African Methodist Episcopal Church to support its mission.
The organization's chief operating officer, Chamain Moss-Torres, said people typically turn to their church for support before and after a disaster.
“We didn't realize that these types of disasters can be so shaking that survivors of the storms really needed some more religious types of support,” she said.
The church will offer spiritual and emotional support, as well as direct people in need to the proper resources.
Ernest Coney Jr., the nonprofit's CEO, added that without reliable federal funding, local initiatives can fill the gaps.
“It takes a village,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, said the program is especially important in light of deadly flooding in Texas.
“It just underscores the importance of making sure that we build resilient lives, that we are looking out for our neighbors,” Castor said.
She added that after last year’s hurricanes that hit the Tampa Bay area, churches and volunteer organizations were essential to recovery.
“Churches were helping everyone,” she said. “Neighbors were helping neighbors. But there’s just no substitute for an organized effort to make sure that neighbors are healthy and well at a time of catastrophe.”
The initiative will help people find food, new jobs or information they need to rebuild their homes after a hurricane.
In addition, Moss-Torres said, underserved communities already go into a disaster without the resources or education about storm preparation they need.
“It’s important to get out in those areas because we had found that individuals in those areas came to the disaster and were set back two, three times as worse as they had been,” Moss-Torres said.
That preparation, she said, includes making physical copies of documents previously stored online.
After the initiative’s launch in July, Moss-Torres said they will hire the employees who will make up the support system and continue making new connections in the community.
The main center will be in Tampa, but there will be satellite offices in St. Petersburg and Wimauma.
