Community Center of St. Bernard www.CCSTB.org

I arrived as a volunteer in New Orleans from NH January 2006, expecting to stay only about 3 weeks. After working at the Made With Love Cafe and seeing first-hand the devastation,I made a long-term commitment to helping with the recovery effort.I have served as volunteer Executive Director of the Community Center since its inception in April, 2006,I also serve as Vice-Chair of Unified Nonprofits of Greater New Orleans, Vice-Chair of St. Bernard Community Recovery and am a member of St. Bernard Parish Citizens Recovery Committee.
Iray


COMMUNITY CENTER OF ST BERNARD
1107 LeBeau Street CellPhone: (504) 617- 2580
Arabi LA 70032 Phone: (504) 281- 2512
www.CCSTB.org Fax: (916) 675- 7827

The Community Center of St Bernard is located in St. Bernard Parish, directly next door to New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward, at the epicenter of devastation from Hurricane Katrina. We are a community based grassroots 501 (c) (3) nonprofit that strives to meet the needs of hurricane survivors in St Bernard Parish and surrounding areas. Our mission is to empower residents seeking to rebuild their lives and their communities by providing them with local access to the recovery resources they need in a safe and all-inclusive environment.

We address emergency needs immediately through our Mustard Seed Distribution program (Food Pantry, Clothing Bank), and hot meals. Other direct services include free internet, computer classes, faxing and phone service to enable residents to seek employment, keep in contact with family members now scattered across the country, and find applicable federal, state and local aid programs. And in collaboration with partner agencies, we provide local access to free medical care, legal aid, housing assistance, case management, prenatal care, socialization opportunities (dances, community celebrations, workshops), disability advocacy, senior citizen employment training, and stress reduction resources from across the greater New Orleans area.

The Community Center is dedicated to serving the least well-off and the disenfranchised who are still struggling to recover more than 3 years after Katrina. During 2008 our Mustard Seed Food Pantry gave out 245,787 lbs of food to 2,033 unique low-income families. Those families included 1,797 children ages 17 & under. Many of these are among the most vulnerable of members of the community. 43% of these families have a head of household who is unemployed; 31% contain a physically or mentally disabled individual; 29% are headed by single parents. And 98% of these families are making less than $25,000 per year. In fact, 62% of them are struggling to survive on less than $10,000 annually.

Unfortunately the current economic crisis is taking a terrible toll on these low-income families. At the Community Center, our staff are now processing up to 10 intake requests every day for the Mustard Seed Food Pantry, as compared to about 2 requests daily a year ago this time. During January 2009 alone, 243 new households met the income requirements (total income less than 130% of the federal poverty limit) to be added to our client list. This is more than double the 116 new households who qualified during the previous month (December 2008).

Typical among these new clients are people like Rebecca Muscarello, a Food Pantry participant whose story was featured in the New York Times. Ms Muscarello had made a good living as a secretary, so she never imagined that at age 35 she would be left with no choice but to take her two young children to a food pantry to get groceries. But like a growing number of Americans whose jobs have evaporated in a shrinking economy, Ms. Muscarello ran out of money and then food, so she turned to the Community Center in order to feed herself and her children (www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11...11FOOD.html

The need for other basic services provided by the Community Center is equally urgent:
• Every week more than 200 families get free clothes at the Mustard Seed Clothing Bank.
• During 2008, the Community Center served 3,855 free hot dinners & 4,029 free hot lunches.
• The Community Center has 10 public computers with free printing, as well as 3 phones for making free local and long distance phone calls. During October 2008 alone, these computers were used 615 times.
• And during 2008, 142 people have signed up for the free computer classes offered at the Community Center.
• During 2008, the Community Center passed out 27,023 informational flyers, forms and brochures to help clients find the help they needed, including 3,760 applications for Emergency Food Stamps after Hurricane Gustav.
• During this same time, our office staff made 2,399 referrals to help clients find resources and other assistance.
• The 2008 St Bernard Thanksgiving Celebration organized by the Community Center served more than 500 turkey dinners with all the trimmings to area residents.
• And our 2008 Toy GiveAway provided more than 2,000 toys to 685 area children.
More information about the various events presented by the Community Center during 2008 is available at www.ccstb.org/sidebar/news/index.html

However, in order to effectively fulfill our mission of providing necessary recovery services to hurricane survivors, the Community Center goes beyond simply acting as a direct service provider and has developed a unique two-fold approach. We actively work to form strategic alliances with a variety of resource agencies from across the greater New Orleans 5-parish area rather than attempting to meet all needs ourselves. By providing these partner agencies with client-meeting space at our centralized location in St Bernard Parish, the Community Center avoids duplication of services while facilitating the ability of local residents, many of whom still have limited transportation options in the wake of the disaster, to become aware of and access the various types of assistance that are available to them.

Specific partner agencies currently providing services at the Community Center of St Bernard include: New Orleans Legal Assistance Clinic, Daughters of Charity New Orleans (Mom & Baby Mobile Health Clinic), Talk It Out Van, St Anna's Medical Mission, BlueStone Ministries, Families Helping Families of Southeast Louisiana, Louisiana Department of Social Services Office of Family Support (Food Stamps), Louisiana Spirit, Swan River Yoga, Jefferson Parish Council on Aging, Milestones Mental Health Agency, and Road Home. The local need for these services is clearly evidenced by client-participation data. Each month approximately 40 senior citizens seek job training through the Senior Community Service Employment Program, and more than 100 families sign up for the federal food stamps program at the Community Center.

Our networking-based method of providing services allows the Community Center maximal flexibility so that we can readily adapt our available services to meet the changing needs of our clients as the recovery progresses simply by modifying our partner agencies. This regional networking strategy is being developed as a model for other intermediate- to long-term disaster response agencies that need to assist clients after the initial shock of the catastrophe has passed, but while crucial sections of social infrastructure (public transport, schools, libraries, hospitals) are only minimally functional and in the process of being rebuilt.