Community Action has helped hundreds
Annette Finch and Joni Dix couldn’t help smiling as they watched BOCES students build a handicap ramp and plant flowers at the home of a 2-year-old girl with spinal muscular atrophy.
“What a wonderful way to end the month,” said Dix, emergency services coordinator for Community Action of Orleans and Genesee, as they watched the activity on a recent May morning at the home of little Molly Terry in Lyndonville.
The project was completed through the cooperation of BOCES and the Lyndonville-Yates Ministerial Association, who were brought together by Community Action.
May was recently observed nationwide as Community Action Month, and no organization has more reason to celebrate than the local Community Action, said Finch, director of Community Services.
“Last year was an exciting one at Community Action and one that included significant growth,” said Edward Fancher, executive director of Community Action of Orleans and Genesee.
Fancher shared highlights from the previous year and praised other agencies and individuals in the two counties who partnered with Community Action to provide services to hundreds of families.
According to Fancher, 116 individuals sought and secured employment; 1,063 volunteers contributed 24,401 hours of service; and Community Action worked with 329 disabled individuals, 281 without health insurance and 330 single mothers (all but 81 families were under 150 percent of the federal poverty level).
Emergency Services provided help to 990 families in Genesee County and 1,006 in Orleans County; 1,021 households received emergency food; 227 families were given clothing and personal care items; 65 families received emergency housing and utility assistance; and 868 individuals benefited from surplus food distribution.
Dix recounted several examples of how Community Action was able to help families who had exhausted all other means of assistance.
“I have been told people consider us the ‘agency of first resort,”‘ Dix said.
Eddie and Rosa Grant of Barre were living on a meager income with no money to fix their leaking roof. When Eddie, who was fighting cancer, could no longer climb into the attic to empty the pails of water when it rained, they came to Community Action.
An article in The Daily News resulted in donations of several thousand dollars and materials, and two local contractors volunteered their labor to fix the roof.
When Shelby resident Alicia Thiel was paralyzed from a fall in her home, Community Action helped coordinate efforts to build a wheelchair ramp and handicap bathroom. As a result of the help provided to her, Thiel became an avid Community Action supporter. After months of therapy, she chose to take her first steps at Community Action’s volunteer luncheon, and has since become a volunteer herself.
“Seeing how Community Action helps others has given Alicia a new lease on life,” Dix said. “She regularly comes to help us with projects. She is now in rehab in Atlanta, and she called to say she picked up a homeless lady and is going to volunteer in the soup kitchen there.”
Another example of how Community Action helps those in need is the homeless woman with four children who worked part-time and needed a place to live close to her job. Community Action helped find her a place to live, provided the family with food and a holiday basket and paid her electric bill. Through case management, she was able to keep her job, move into transitional housing and afford her commute to work, making the family self-sufficient.
Community Action Angels, a program started by Pat Standish of Perry, has sponsored community events, such as a Night of Entertainment, Hope for Alicia, an Easter egg hunt in partnership with the Albion American Legion, Children’s Carnival, Stuff the Bus, Sock it to Me (a statewide challenge in which they collected more than 2,000 pairs of socks locally) and partnered with other organizations to sponsor various events.
CAOG’s Housing and Energy Services and Community Action Transportation System (CATS) are two more services provided by Community Action. In Albion, Community Action runs the Main Street Store, which not only earns money for CAOG programs, but provides employment opportunities and a meeting space for the community.
Enrollment in the Head Start Program run by Community Action in both counties averages 99 to 100 percent.
Also in both counties is the Child Care and Resource and Referral program, which provides information about child care options.
New opportunities in 2009 included establishment of Employment Support services and expanding the Weatherization Program through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since October, 96 senior’s homes have been weatherized, Fancher said. CATS expanded out-of-county Medicaid transportation in Orleans County and surplus food distributions were extended to Medina and Lyndonville.
Also in 2009, CAOG purchased the building adjacent to the Community Center in Holley and started a very active after school program for local youth, Fancher said.
Community Action’s organizational budget for 2010 is $6.8 million.
“We will continue to welcome opportunities and work hard to provide services to help people overcome the challenges of poverty and build self-sufficiency in the lives of our neediest neighbors,” Fancher said.
The latest effort by Community Action is a new program called “Mending Homes Together,” in which CAOG hopes to partner their Action Angels and BOCES to do projects for needy families.
Like all Action Angels projects, money must come from donations and fund-raising.
Annette Finch, director of Community Services in Albion, said volunteers and donations are welcome. Their goal is to complete four projects a year, she said.
Agency traces roots to the 1960s
Community Action is a nationwide movement discussed during the John F. Kennedy Administration, said Nathan Varland, director of support services for Community Action.
Kennedy died before it could be implemented, but Lyndon Johnson continued the “War on Poverty” movement, which created the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.
The emphasis on local change led to the name Community Action.
Locally, Community Action was established in 1965 when the board of supervisors in Orleans County appointed a committee to study ways to become part of the movement. An action committeed was formed to study local needs for housing, migrant labor and youth training, as well as problems facing older Americans. An agency was formed under the name of Orleans Community Action Committee.
Anti-poverty programming began in July 1965 with Head Start, Family Planning, Legal Aid, Neighborhood Youth and People’s Opportunity.
Genesee County became part of the agency in 1984, and in December 2007, the name was changed to Community Action of Orleans and Genesee to unify the agency’s image and better reflect its service area, Varland said.
Sue Rigoni is director of community services for the office in Batavia.
Since 1965, the movement has expanded to 1,100 Community Action agencies across the country, which annually help 17 million low-income Americans achieve economic security.
Whether it’s a Head Start program, weatherization, job training, housing, food bank, energy assistance, financial education or any of its other services, Community Action agencies work to make America a better place to live.
Today, Community Action has grown to have a deeper impact across both Genesee and Orleans counties, which is why Emergency Services coordinator Joni Dix says she loves her job.
“Community Action is making a difference in peoples’ lives who are struggling,” Dix said. “Just showing we care fills families hearts with hope and reminds them things can unexpectedly change for the better. I am so happy to work with many people and organizations in the community who want to extend their hands to assist their neighbors in need.”
SOURCE: www.thedailynewsonline.com
on August 31, 2010 at 6:01 am
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- Martin
on October 20, 2010 at 10:43 am
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on November 13, 2010 at 3:21 am
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on November 18, 2010 at 12:41 am
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