07/13/2016
Tri-County Long Term Recovery, NFP officially turned out its lights today. The board of directors voted to go dormant until called on to assist for some future event.
We thank all of the donors, volunteers and the Tri-County Area for the support of the recovery effort. A special thank you to The Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the Community Foundation of Central Illinois and the American Red Cross. Each of these organizations played a critical role in the recovery effort.
Please visit Tri-County Long Term Recovery, NFP web site for information. http://myltr.org
Thank you
Tri-County Long Term Recovery, NFP
Looking back the Peoria Journal Editorial on July 21, 2014 told the recovery story, here is that editorial.
Our View: Silver Linings Playbook
Peoria Journal Opinion
Posted Jul. 21, 2014 @ 7:54 pm
We wouldn’t wish a tornado on anybody, but in many ways the twister that hit Pekin, East Peoria and Washington last November has produced positives that could benefit central Illinois for years to come.
Case in point is Tri-County Long Term Recovery (LTR), the not-for-profit organization that sprang out of the disaster not to deal with first-responder issues — an infrastructure already existed for that — but with medium- and long-range needs that few think of at first. As a result, we’re confident central Illinois is in better position to confront the next natural or man-made disaster, while attending to this one in the present.
The human response following the Nov. 17 cyclone was extraordinarily heartwarming and humbling, with literally thousands of people from all over the country descending upon central Illinois with a sincere desire to help — to do something, anything where they could alleviate someone else’s suffering. But pragmatically that presented very significant challenges, starting with how to coordinate what, left to its own devices, could only be described as chaos. How, then, to identify and verify and prioritize unmet needs, to eliminate duplication of services so finite resources could stretch as far as possible, and without reinventing the wheel?
On Nov. 18, the American Red Cross convened a meeting of some 100 people representing churches, social service organizations and local philanthropic and business groups to answer the question, “What do we do next?” What emerged was LTR, an umbrella organization that ultimately had the resources, both existing and yet to come — including a large grant from the McCormick Foundation ($500,000) and other donations — to fill that role. The ball had already begun rolling in response to the record local flooding of April, 2013, but the tornado crystallized the crying need for such a group.
Among the things they’ve learned is that recovery is not an event but a process that needs to be as simple as possible for those traumatized and often overwhelmed. That means having a one-stop shop and one caseworker with whom to deal. LTR’s members meet once a month at what they call a “founders’ forum,” in which they go around the room detailing the ongoing needs of this or that family — maybe it’s counseling for the stresses that inevitably develop when you’ve suddenly lost your home and your family has been relocated, or filling the gap between the real damage and what insurance or government will cover, or help with a rent payment while still stuck with the mortgage at the demolished place, or a washer and dryer with four kids wearing out the laundromat, or help with soil remediation on a lawn that still has glass and metal embedded in it. That’s usually accompanied by one of the members raising a hand and saying, “We’ll take care of that.”
Bond that, when people need assistance — say, a winter coat — they need it now, not in a month. Reaching the people who must be reached is not quite as easy as it sounds. It was soon discovered that among the best ways to communicate with the dislocated from neighborhoods without power was through mobile electronic billboards stationed along arterial roads, which LTR helped the affected communities purchase. Unfortunately, there are always a few who will try to exploit the unquestioning generosity of others, which is why it is especially critical that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. Meanwhile, people who weren’t hit directly by the storm might be injured indirectly later; for example, providing free meals for victims is a nice gesture, but it also has an impact on local restaurateurs and other merchants. Sometimes providing a food voucher is more productive.
Learning all that, and finding a better way, have proven to be “one of the most gratifying experiences of my life,” said Jim Fassino, an area banker who serves as LTR’s chairman.
LTR has a physical home now at Washington Plaza (most locals refer to it as Sunnyland Plaza) in Washington. It has a fundraising home at the Community Foundation of Central Illinois in Peoria
(communityfoundationci.org). Want to volunteer? The number is (309) 573-2670. Need assistance? Call (309) 573-2658. Want to talk to a caseworker? It’s (309) 696-6923.
In the days and weeks immediately after the tornado, central Illinois and specifically Washington — which suffered the most extensive damage — became “Katrina-fied.” In the end the Nov. 17 storm wasn’t Katrina, and it wasn’t Joplin, Mo. — whose experience turned out to be quite the tutorial for ours — but it was bad, and this part of central Illinois needed all the help it could get.
LTR has no employees — just volunteers — and hopes to disappear at some point. What its leaders hope will survive is the relationships that did not exist before and this “best practices template,” said Community Foundation CEO Mark Roberts, so that the next time — and there will be a next time — recovery efforts don’t have to start from scratch and can get into gear quickly. Call it a “Silver Linings Playbook,” if you will, one that has central Illinois bouncing back faster in many ways than we would ever have imagined. Kudos to all.
