News from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
For up-to-date news from the ELCA, please visit the ELCA News website.
Good News Garage Client Recognized by President
Excerpted from:
The President‘s Faith-Based and Community Initiative in 50 States: A Report to the Nation
Honor of Hope Awardee
In 1997, Kathy Shand was a single parent of four children. Her marriage had ended after one year, and Kathy spent the next fifteen years on State assistance while the children grew up. She tried to go to nursing school, but had to drop out due to lack of childcare.
One day, Kathy saw an article about the Good News Garage, a transportation service established in July 1996 with support from a Social Ministry Outreach Project of Lutheran Social Services of New England. The Good News Garage, a Federal sub-grantee that partners with Faith-based and Community Initiative, uses several programs to meet the needs of those who are unable to access employment because they lack reliable, affordable transportation. These include a car donation program and the Ready To Go program, a transitional transportation service that uses donated vans to drive individuals to and from work.
After Kathy read about the Good News Garage, she applied for a training interview. The Good News Garage contacted her to set up an appointment, and Kathy began her training program in July 1997. One year later, she was finally hired as a service writer and was so excited to receive her first paycheck. After eleven years, Kathy remains an employee of the Good News Garage, working as the Office Manager. Kathy is just one of the more than 3,000 families and individuals that once faced lack of transportation as a barrier to economic independence, but have had their lives transformed by the Good News Garage.
The entire President's Report can be found here.
"The GIANT Church Fair"
The Church Fair, there will be games, activities, BBQ, craft stands, hayrides, dunking booths, and music.
The executive director Nancy Hess will be in the dunk tank. If you would like to display and sell your own crafts at the fair, please contact Betsy at betsy@calumet.org
Entire event sponsored by Thrivent Lutheran. People from all over New England will be attending this event. August 24th, 2008. Guest preacher the Bishop Margaret Payne. Musical guests: Faithful Folks from Woodstock, NY. For more information, go to the Calumet site.
2007-2008 disaster season maxes out non-profits
Central Massachusetts and many other areas around New England have taken a hard beating this year. Between fires, floods, droughts, ice damage, brush fires, hailstorms, and severe thunderstorms and heat waves, disaster response funds are drastically low this year. The Central Massachusetts Red Cross chapter is saying much the same. We had an ";unprecendented amount of demand" for disaster help during the past year. "To date," says the article, "765 individuals, including 265 children, have been displaced by local disasters" in Central Massachusetts. There is no doubt that this year has been full of disasters and, consequently, taken a toll on disaster funds.
In the past few months, LDR has started a new fund targeted towards giving disaster clients immediate help with basic needs, primarily food and clothing. It is called the Good Neighbor Fund. Every dollar from this fund will be used to directly help your local neighbors, and it’s only source is donations. It is, literally, from the local people, to the local people.
If you would like to donate to the Good Neighbor Fund, please send it to LDR and specify the Good Neighbor Fund.
Read more of the above quoted Red Cross article
Serving Our Veterans in the Law
Each Monday, call (617) 338-0572 between 3 and 5 p.m., to be matched with a volunteer attorney — for FREE.
Program offered as a public service of the Massachusetts Bar Association and U.S. Trust.
Training
Maine’s Elders and Emergencies: Working for the Future
The Maine Center for Public Health, the Maine Office of Elder Services and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Maine Emergency Management Agency and the Harvard School of Public Health Center for Public Health Preparedness is pleased to present an online course intended to improve emergency preparedness planning for and among the elderly population.
Harvard School of Public Health, Center for Public Health Preparedness has made this online training course available:
This course is designed for city and state officials, representatives of community-based organizations and other service providers, adult caregivers, first responders, elder adults and any individual who wants to participate in promoting emergency preparedness for elder community needs.
This course will provide you with the tools and knowledge necessary to prepare and respond to elders in an emergency. It is professionally narrated and has non-graded quizzes that will allow one to test their responses, it has printable facts and other downloadable information. We also encourage you to share this online course with anyone involved in emergency preparedness or other groups/individuals who may benefit from it.
TO ENROLL IN THE COURSE Visit: www.cphp.sph.harvard.eduUser name: Elder
Password: Elder
***Please note, the above user name and password are case-sensitive****
LSS Employment Opportunities
As the result of some staff turnover and a staffing shortage in our Maine programs, we are sending word to all of our programs to see if there are current employees, or potential employees, who would be interested in temporary or permanent job opportunities in Maine.
There are opportunities for supervisors and staff willing to work in Maine for these assignments. A housing allowance is being offered for staff willing to take on this assignment. The client population would be both Adult Mental Health and Developmentally Disabled Adults living in community based group home settings.
At this point there is no specific information, but if you or someone you know is interested in this opportunity either for the short term a few weeks or a longer term, please e-mail Zalima Oliver at zoliver@lssne.org
Group Volunteer Opportunities
If you are interested in other volunteer opportunities specifically in the Cedar Rapids area, here is a place to register your group: http://www.corridorrecovery.org/Volunteer.asp
The status for housing volunteers in Iowa is uncertain. Some groups may need to be totally self-sufficient. Please make sure you clarify this with each group you contact.
Additional areas of the state will be needing assistance by volunteer groups as time unfolds. For further updates, please check flood.2008.iowa.gov
MITRE donates computers to LDR
This past June, LDR volunteer Todd Hays worked with MITRE to donate 5 laptops to the LDR program. We appreciate all Todd’s hard work towards making this happen and are deeply thankful to have been given this gift! These computers will be well used by our staff.
If you or your company would like to donate to LDR, please contact Chris Thatcher at cthatcher@lssne.org . We would love to talk to you about how you can help LDR help others.
Links to keep YOURSELF informed!
What Lutherans can do
At this time, the primary need in this response continues to be financial donations. With the water still high in parts of Wisconsin and Iowa, making additional flooding a possibility, the work of cleaning-up and rebuilding may still take some time to begin. There are ELCA bulletin inserts: http://www.elca.org/disaster(right-hand column), for both flooding and tornadoes, or people can give directly through LDR: http://www.ldr.org/donate
Locally, Lutheran volunteers have been active in numerous communities helping with clean up and assembling flood buckets. The affected states and municipalities are coordinating local volunteers in a variety of places. For links to State sponsored pages with information about local volunteer efforts, visit the Midwest alert page on the LDR website here: http://www.ldr.org/alert/index.html )
For groups outside the region with access to volunteer teams or who is receiving inquiries about volunteering, the message at this point is still that we are in a holding pattern. There will be volunteer needs for clean up and rebuilding in the affected areas, but more time is needed to coordinate work. Any outside groups that are preparing to volunteer should know that they will be expected to be as self-sufficient as possible.
What will happen next
Next week, Kevin meets with a number of NVOAD partners to coordinate next steps for this response. Funding is a major concern for all organizations at this time so any work that is done will need to happen collaboratively. LDR-Indiana, through LSS of Central Ohio, has offered to employ case managers for the various long-term recoveries in Indiana and is helping those organizations to start forming. Long-term recovery has also started in Bremer County (Waverly) in Iowa and some other areas. Wisconsin VOAD met this week to discuss coordination of services and Long Term Recovery issues.
Available Resources
Flood bucket: information from FEMA at
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/rebuild/recover/fema_mold_brochure_english.pdf
ELCA Video, filmed during the week of June 23: "After the Floods:"
http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Stories-of-Faith-in-Action/After-the-Floods.aspx
What kinds of hurricanes can hit N.E. and more...