As hurricane season approaches, The Foundation is mindful that our community could be severely impacted by a weather event.

The Community Foundation Martin-St. Lucie has restructured our local Disaster Relief Fund.   We recognize that tapping donor funds and requiring extensive grant applications from nonprofit organizations requires time.  We want to be positioned to rapidly deploy resources in the crucial hours and days immediately following the event.

How it works:

To ensure that appropriate controls are in place, we will pre-select nonprofit organizations who have proven to be reliable and efficient providers of the kinds of aid likely to be needed such as – food, clothing, emergency and safety supplies, medicine, shelter, and water.

We are confident that eliminating the need to garner contributions immediately following a disaster and removing the burden of extensive grant applications will allow us to respond in a timely and organized manner.  Expediting the mobilization and distribution of resources will be a priority.  This approach will also position the Foundation to better channel resources in a manner that compliments other local relief and recovery efforts.

The Foundation’s goal is to grow the Fund to $500,000.  The Fund has been seeded with a matching challenge gift from three donor families totaling $250,000. If our communities are spared disasters in a particular year, the funds will be carefully invested so they may continue to grow and be available when a disaster does strike.