Community Bulletin
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BUCKHANNON – The Rotary Club of Buckhannon-Upshur flood relief fund has reached $165,000, and more than $12,500 of it has been assigned to applicants.
Randy Sanders, Buckhannon’s city recorder, reported the updated figures during the Sept. 15 Rotary Club of Buckhannon-Upshur meeting.
“We met Monday and started the process of assigning some of the funds. We have a lot of work to do yet, so we’ve initially assigned about $12,500 to $15,000,” Sanders said. “I didn’t get an exact count on my way out the door this morning that we’re going to be distributing to the community as a starting point.”
The committee has split up all the applicants among themselves. Members act as caseworkers, talking to each applicant about their needs and what they lost in the flood.
“We’re really working closely with each of our applicants, and we’re going to refer them to our long-term recovery team they put into place in the community, as well as Mountain CAP and the Parish House for assistance,” Sanders said. “Just because we’re sending somebody maybe $1,000 this week doesn’t mean that’s the end of it. We’re going to monitor that and see what the needs are and try to help them in those tough areas.”
Kelley Tierney, a Rotary Club of Buckhannon-Upshur member, said the committee will also start reaching out to Rotary members about any connections they may have to help their applicants.
“We may be contacting some of you to use some of your connections, whether it’s to buy some equipment to help replace the driveway or to look for materials. We may need some labor, so you may be getting some phone calls from the committee to see what you can do to help the community recover.”
Tierney said the committee talks with applicants regularly to see whether their needs have changed.
“We’re not just looking at those applications; we’re dividing them up and making phone calls and talking. We’ve determined the average phone call was 15 to 20 minutes, just seeing what happened, where they are now, what they need,” she said. “Sometimes they didn’t need anything. We had phone calls where they said, ‘You know what? I’m good where I am now.’ I know there are other folks, so yes, we are spending a lot of time talking to them and understanding their changing situations.”
