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The St. Clair County Community Foundation has established a new disaster fund to assist county residents in the event of a major incident in the future.
The new fund will target events that “overwhelm a community’s resource capacity,” including natural, man-made, and economic disasters.
“We have all seen so many disasters happening across the country recently,” Community Foundation Board Chair Patty Manley said in a news release announcing the fund. “Here in Michigan, we’ve had flooding in Midland, tornadoes in Gaylord, and tragic mass shootings in other communities. We couldn’t wait any longer to take a proactive approach.”
The James C. Acheson Charitable Foundation has contributed $50,000 to the fund, and the Community Foundation hopes to contribute an additional $50,000 by 2025.
The new fund will also accept donations, which will serve as a central source of support in times of disaster. A new website, https://sccstrong.org/, lists when funds from the fund will and will not be used. The news release uses the example of a house fire, which, while tragic, does not impact the entire community and therefore does not trigger the use of funds.
The funds can be used in response to a disaster declared by the St. Clair County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, or the community foundation itself can declare a disaster at the request of local residents.
“This is one thing we never want to use,” said Randy Myers, president and CEO of the Community Foundation. “But in today’s world, we feel that our community foundation, and probably every community foundation in America, needs to establish protocols and policies to be able to respond at a moment’s notice.”
Contact Jonathan Hogan at jhogan@gannett.com.
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