Cal-Nev Awarded $1.3 Million Grant from UMCOR for Wildfire Recovery

April 19, 2018 | by

The United Methodist Committee On Relief (UMCOR) has awarded the California-Nevada Conference a $1.3 million grant to support recovery from the 2017 wildfires that devastated parts of northern California. “The grant not only provides much needed resources to survivors and communities of the October Fires, the project is also designed to continue strengthening disaster readiness and response efforts within the Conference, said Sonja Edd-Bennett, Director of Conference Disaster Response Ministry.
 
Over the next months the Conference, in partnership with the local churches and community partners in the fire areas, will be hiring five disaster case managers, two volunteer coordinators, a construction coordinator and a disaster case manager coordinator to support families needing homes rebuilt, restored, or relocated in Lake, Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma Counties. In addition, a new training series will be rolled out throughout Northern California to include Connecting Neighbors (a Disaster Ready Congregations Curriculum), emergency response team trainings, spiritual and emotional care, and others.
 
“Our hope for this project is to bring further healing and wholeness for survivors as our church members and the community work together in intentional and strategic ways. The faith community has a hope that others may have lost along the way. UMCOR is enabling us to share that hope as we seek new ways to ‘do all the good we can,” said Edd-Bennett
 
This is part of a $46 million round of grants from UMCOR that also included $16.8 million to the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico and will build upon the denomination’s response to Hurricanes Maria, Irma and Harvey, and flooding in Louisiana.
Read UMCOR Announcement
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