How the Disaster Relief and Development Fund was used in the past year
While we cannot resolve all the pains in the world, our support helps to ease the suffering of others. This last year, the fellowship’s financial support through the Disaster Relief and Development Fund has helped with these crisis situations:
- Durango area food insecurity – as part of increased food insecurity related to Covid impacts, our local soup kitchen (and more) Manna recognized the need for extra food support to families during the summer when children were at home. UUFD contributed money to provide a full week of food backpacks to all families needing them.
- Fire response relief – the Rogue Valley UU Fellowship was in the heart of the area where many homes burned down during the devastating fires in Oregon. We donated to help them help families recovering from their losses.
- Texas hurricane relief – people living with disabilities, people of color, and immigrants are often inadequately served by FEMA in the wake of severe storms and hurricanes. We donated to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Texas Disaster Relief to help them with assistance to these underserved communities in the wake of late summer hurricanes.
- Grief counseling and support – The Grief Center of Southwest Colorado experienced a significant increase, double the number of clients, in need for grief support services due to the number of deaths related to Covid, deaths of despair (substance-abuse related and deaths by suicide), as well as higher levels of grief from homicide and trauma-related deaths.
- Healthcare crisis – the healthcare system in India is nearly at collapse in their ability to meet the care needs of those sick in the latest surge of Covid. We contributed to “Oxygen for India-British Asian Trust” which is sending oxygen concentrators to areas where oxygen supplies are at a crisis of unavailability.
Our generosity of heart and resources uplifts the spirits, as well as the capacity, of those doing good work in the world. Much gratitude.