Disaster Child Care opens two new centers in Florida.

Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne—Disaster Child Care (DCC) volunteers will have responded to each of these disasters with the opening of two new child care centers this week in Vero Beach and Winter Haven, Fla. Two teams of volunteers and a project manager from the General Board program are being deployed to these locations at the request of the American Red Cross, reported coordinator Helen Stonesifer.

Volunteers continue to meet the needs of children in two locations in Pensacola and at the Osceola Square Mall in Kissimmee, Fla. Centers in Gulf Breeze, Wauchula, and Englewood, Fla., have closed, as have those in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Claysburgh, Pa., and in Salem, Va. Since DCC began its response to the hurricanes, some 86 volunteers have made contact with over 1,900 children.

Parents, as well as the Red Cross and emergency staff, have been very appreciative of the service, Stonesifer said. She passed along the comment of a Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency director, that the DCC volunteers' "gift goes far beyond just watching over a child while the parent(s) goes through the tedious application process essential to assisting the family in their recovery.... This contact is often the first real attention many of the children have been able to receive from an adult, and it has served to remind the parents that the children are in need of assistance in this recovery process as well."

An article about the work of DCC at an American Red Cross center in Pensacola, "In Panhandle, a miserable wait," by Susan Kim, can be found at www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=2442.

A team of three child care volunteers—Laurene Holsinger, John Surr, and Brenda Palsgrove—will serve at the 10th Annual National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation in Arlington, Va., Oct. 16-17. Care will be provided for children of victims' families from the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. The foundation was incorporated in 1995 by air crash survivors and family members of victims. "Disaster Child Care is very honored to have been requested to participate in this event again this year," said Stonesifer.

In other disaster-related news, the General Board's Emergency Disaster Fund has provided $20,000 for food relief in Kenya, where a tenth of the people are at risk of famine, reported Roy Winter, director of Emergency Response. "Kenya is suffering a massive crop failure due to irregular rainfall patterns and contamination of grain reserves by afllatoxin, a toxin created by grain mold," he wrote in the grant application. "It is estimated that 3.3 million people need emergency assistance." The grant will support efforts at food relief for 18,722 families.

Source: 10/15/2004 Newsline
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