Organizations respond to Missouri tornado disasters

From left: Jono Anzalone with FEMA and
Karen Haren, with Harvesters.
A press conference was held at Harvesters food bank in Kansas City on Thursday, May 26, 2011 with Jono Anzalone, Regional Voluntary Agency Liaison with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Margaret Larson, Disaster Services Specialist with the Feeding America, and Karen Haren, president of Harvesters. At least two television stations and a reporter with the Kansas City Star were in attendance.

Anzalone emphasized the importance of working through designated agencies like Harvesters to deliver assistance most effectively. He stated that 6000 people have registered to volunteer at Missouri Southern State University, the Joplin tornado relief coordination site. The influx of concerned people was straining the resources of the very community that was dealing with devastation from the tornado.

He further encouraged people to donate money to organizations designated by the state of Missouri  or register their skills at the Show-Me Response website, a site run by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Anzalone underscored the importance of donating money, when possible, because it is a more effective, quicker way to deliver disaster relief. He noted that a 50 cent can of vegetables donated from out-of-state ends up of costing $18 when the cost of transportation and labor is considered.

Larson emphasized the effectiveness of private, non-profit organizations like Harvesters working with public institutions like FEMA to coordinate the collection and distribution of food. She mentioned that six truckloads of food have been gathered for delivery to Joplin through area donations.

Harvesters, acting in concert with Feeding America and FEMA, collected a truckload of bleach and personal hygiene products like shampoo and conditioner. The food bank also delivered 10,000 sack lunches for delivery for relief workers. The lunches included ready-to-eat items like cheese, pudding, tuna, crackers, and apple juiceboxes.

The conference highlighted the importance of a private-public partnership to provide disaster relief and assistance.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Community Media: Serving More Than a Geographic Region

Community media outlets like KKFI 90.1 FM in Kansas City have thrived for decades, maintaining a well-established broadcast model: high-quality studio sound broadcast to a wide geographic area serving the "community." Non-profit community radio station like KKFI, along with college radio and small commercial radio stations keep costs low by renting small studios and operating with few paid employees. These stations attract small audiences but differentiate themselves by focusing on community issues, music and culture. This focus is what defines community media, along with -- in the case of community radio -- maintaining cooperative ownership, not corporate ownership. Community radio operators always knew that "community" was more than a geographic region; it was the various cultural, ethnic, social and artistic communities for which locally-produced radio shows target. KKFI has local radio shows by or directed to African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and immigrant
Read more

Quest for a new volunteer management system at KC area food bank

Image
Note: This document is an early draft of a business case to upgrade a volunteer management system. It is not intended to be a fully organized statement of requirements, but more of a collection of features and a document for discussion. Overview Harvesters, the Kansas City area food bank, would like to improve the capability of the Volunteer App, the volunteer management system used to schedule, track and recruit volunteers and groups.  The Volunteer Services department would also like to improve the efficiency and accuracy of volunteer management by adapting their processes with new features and functions from an updated application. The current, custom Microsoft Access-based system developed a few years ago provides a rich-featured, robust solution to track individuals and groups volunteering at Harvesters. The system tracks all volunteers working in the Volunteer Outreach Center, as well as those donating their time and skills for events and in departments throughout Ha
Read more

Lee's Summit Proposes the Sanity Approach to Waste Reduction

Image
Finally! The city of Lee's Summit, Missouri took a responsible approach to trash service by replacing an all-you-can-dump-with-no-free-recycling-option to a "volume-based" approach similar to the successful service used in Kansas City, Missouri. After the service is changed, then those residents who have paid $2.50 per month to trash companies like Deffenbaugh can rely on the new service for free recycling, plus get the satisfaction that waste will be reduced and recycling increased. ...the City Council directed city staff to issue the state-required two-year notice to all solid waste haulers providing services in the City that the City is considering implementation of a comprehensive, citywide, solid waste program.  The program currently proposed by city staff includes volume-based pricing for residential trash service with unlimited, curbside recycling at no additional fee .  Under this proposed program, residents would only pay for the amount of trash they discard ;
Read more