Red Cross chapter ‘reaching farther' as resources decline

The cost of staffing shelters and providing other relief in the wake of Hurricane Earl has not been finalized, but the executive director of the Coastal Carolina Chapter of the American Red Cross expects it to total several thousand dollars.

That expense comes at a lean time for the chapter that serves Craven, Carteret, Jones and Pamlico counties as it has seen declines in individual donations and other sources, said Carol Hardy, the chapter’s executive director. The chapter moved its offices from Glenburnie Road to a location at 35 Shoreline Drive in River Bend in January.

 “We went through every aspect of opening shelters, staffing shelters … from that standpoint alone it was big,” Hardy said of the chapter’s Earl response. “Did it cost money? Yes, it did. It would be nice if we had a 60-day cash reserve on hand; we do not.”

The chapter helped staff six shelters, four of them in Craven County, to take in people getting out of the way of the hurricane that brushed the North Carolina coast last week.

The chapter also distributed snacks to evacuees, and provided children with comfort kits that included items such as toothpaste and toys. The chapter will have to replenish its kit supply to maintain the level of 500 that Hardy said the chapter keeps on hand at all times.

Hardy said the chapter prepared an emergency response vehicle in addition to three others supplied by chapters from areas in North Carolina and from Georgia. One vehicle can cost more than a few thousand dollars to load, and filling up its gas tank can cost more than $100, she said. Snacks from two vehicles were distributed to people in shelters.

“When all is said and done, this exercise will be several thousand dollars,” Hardy said.

She said the chapter will try to raise more money, share resources with Red Cross chapters in the region, build partnerships with local businesses, and continue to watch its expenditures. She said the chapter has been aggressively cutting costs for several years.

“We have to be extraordinarily diligent in terms of every single expenditure,” she said.

Individual donations are slightly down, although she said they’ve moved back compared to a period earlier in the year when many people focused their efforts on Haiti relief. She said people in the chapter’s four-county area raised more than $40,000.

“It shows the generosity of Eastern North Carolina,” she said. “At the same time, a good portion of those donations, which may have come through the chapter, they went to Haiti.”

In addition to declining individual donations, she said the nonprofit, like others, took a reduction in funding from a major source, the United Way of Coastal Carolina. The United Way’s partner agencies took a 25 percent cut in fiscal year 2010, and budget reductions for agencies in current fiscal year 2011 averaged about 25 percent, said Sandra Phelps, executive director.

“Hopefully as the economy improves we’re going to be able to see more contributions to fill the different needs the community has,” Phelps said.

Hardy said that, in the meantime, chapter services have not been reduced. The chapter’s volunteer base and services have grown, and because of the more severe winter weather earlier in the year, the chapter responded to an increased number of disaster calls, 33 between January and June, from fires.

“By all measures, we’re doing more than serving the community; we’re reaching farther,” Hardy said.

Laura Oleniacz can be reached at 252-635-5675 or at loleniacz@freedomenc.com.