2022 Grant Recipients

Foundation Christian Church, Newnan City Church, Plant Newnan and RiverLife – Tree & Debris Assistance Collaboration Project

$96,000 RiverLife, on behalf of the collaborative group- Foundation Christian Church, Newnan City Church and Plant Newnan, Inc., – each working in the expertise and mission of their specific organization bringing assistance to many survivors as we help remove trees and debris from their properties. The requests for assistance from homeowners in Coweta have not ended with the new year. There is still much to do in our recovery efforts. As of late, we have been receiving an increasing number of requests for larger, more difficult issues that pertain to trees and debris caused by the March 2021 EF-4 tornado, which pose a threat to the structure of homes or the safety of the homeowners. In some cases, the requests are for trimming large tree limbs only, but in others it is for complete tree felling and removal of stumps or root balls.

Unfortunately, these types of services are beyond the capabilities of our organizations and volunteers because we lack the training and equipment required to perform these tasks safely. To be done safely and correctly, these jobs require a professional tree service to complete the work. Professional tree services are by far the most expensive contracted services that tornado survivors will need to hire in their recovery efforts. RiverLife is committed to continuing to organize groups as needed to off-set professional services in order to continue our recovery efforts.

Newnan-Coweta Habitat for Humanity, Inc

$25,000 NCHFH’s CEO, Eric Miller, sits on the Long-Term Tornado Recovery Allocations Committee. Based on NCHFH Tornado Recovery Repair Program Criteria, funds will be disbursed to support cases in which the family’s annual revenue may be up to 100% of AMI and who own and reside in the home. There will be no insurance obligation and no repayment obligation.

Our objective is to contribute up to $51k between affiliate funds and grant funds to support tornado recovery efforts in Coweta County. The Long-Term Disaster Recovery Committee will coordinate specific repair projects for applicants using the money donated by NCHFH and other community partners.

The amount of funds NCHFH will contribute to each repair is dependent on the needs of each respective homeowner and the financial contributions of other organizations at the table. NCHFH will use all grant funds received to support as many tornado recovery efforts as possible until the grant money has been exhausted.

Repair needs presented to the Allocations Committee will be funded by NCHFH and other organizations. The repairs will be carried out by the long term recovery construction manager and their team. Our success will be measured by how many families these monies contribute to returning to safe, sanitary, and secure housing situations.

The outcome of these efforts will be that homeowners in Coweta County will have repairs made to their homes that directly address the destruction caused by the March 2021 tornado.

Inspiritus – Construction Manager

$125,000 Inspiritus has been honored to be an important partner in the Coweta Long Term Recovery (LTR) efforts by providing a Construction Manager to oversee the rebuild of Coweta post storm. The Construction Manager was hired in the fall of 2021 but resigned in February. They have now hired a new Construction Manager, as we move into year two of rebuilding Coweta. They requested funding to assist with the payroll of this position and program expenses.

One Roof Ecumenical Outreach – Group counseling

$9100 One Roof Ecumenical Outreach has hired a staff member to provide counseling to the community. She has had one individual client, and participated in 30 hours of lay counseling training at Southcrest Church as of today. We have developed some group projects for seniors and are going to begin with the Tommy Thompson Senior Center on Hospital Road in Newnan. We want to bring these art therapy projects related to family life to as many seniors centers as we can this summer. We plan to address this group because of the distress related to tornado damage, ongoing fears, and perhaps it is even increased due to separation from families due to COVID-19 in the same time period.

Union City Housing Authority / Housing Authority of Newnan – Tornado Recovery Utility/Maintenance for (5) RV Campers

$25,000 The HAN received a donation of six movie campers with five (5) of them that are fully furnished that are placed on one of our properties (10 Jordan Street Newnan, Ga. 30263). We are able to house five homeowners at a time and allow them to stay in the campers for up to six months at no cost to them during their transition. The HAN will pay all selected utility and maintenance vendors invoices submitted to us on behalf of the one-going utility and or maintenance cost for the RV campers and will continue to seek additional grants and donations for their monthly cost.

We expect that we will serve a minimum of 25 residents during their transition while they are waiting for their current homes to be renovated, rebuilt and or relocated to a new, affordable living arrangement.

The funds will help in maintain a clean, safe environment for the tenants who are currently residing in the RV’s; to help cover the cost of monthly utility bills as well as maintenance up-keep of the RV’S.

ELEVATE Coweta Students

$25,000 – Student Success: Staff of ELEVATE Coweta Students continue to serve students who have been impacted by the March 2021 tornado. Students at Ruth Hill and Smokey Road at such a young age were affected emotionally causing significant academic issues. Both schools suffered no physical damage, students continue to deal with issues at home and school. Not all who attend Newnan High School suffered damage to homes, yet every student was impacted as the school was significantly damaged and now has been demolished. The emotional toll this has created for students continues to create both academic and behavior challenges. Even East Coweta High students were significantly impacted as many of those we serve live in the Chalk Level, Pinson/Savannah St area that was hardest hit. Daily students enter our rooms for guidance for a host of issues. In fact, we are even seeing struggling students that have had close friends impacted by the tornado. Our Site Coordinators and staff will continue to work one-on-one with caseload students providing goal setting, accountability, social emotional learning, and encouragement to assist and promote success in the classroom. In addition, teachers frequently have students come to our rooms to make up assignments, tests, and homework. We are seeing more instances of students needing a calming space to alleviate anxiety and stress. Many of our students find that they can talk to our staff and share issues impacting their lives as some have very limited adult support. ELEVATE is their only place they can open up, feel valued, and have the ability to focus on being successful in school. We serve hundreds of students with basic needs including food, clothing, and school supplies. Students visit our room regularly for items that they would otherwise go without. Funding for this program at schools serving students impacted by the tornado will allow our organization to continue to provide these additional layers of support. The staff are the program and without funding for salaries, hundreds of students will not have the resources they need to be successful in school. This grant will allow that to continue.

Hope Global Initiative

$25,000 – Long Term Housing Initiative: The construction of a duplex in Newnan Georgia will provide affordable housing for displaced families from the tornados that hit Newnan GA last year. The funds will be used to purchase building materials for the construction of duplex.

The families that will move into the duplex are those affected by the tornado in 2021. This will give the opportunity to reset their lives after losing their homes by providing a safe, healthy, and affordable home.

This project is a collaborative effort and we wish to get these families with Children in a stable home and to see them do better in school due to a healthy and consistent living situation.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta

$25,000 – Transportation Logistics in Coweta County Boys & Girls Clubs: We are requesting funds to support transportation costs for the Coweta County Clubs; as part of our holistic model, we pick up our members after school and bring them to the Club. Through investing in this work, the Coweta Community Foundation will help us continue to provide transportation to the Clubs from Coweta County Schools in FY 2022/23. As you can imagine, transportation is a barrier to attend the Club for many of our youth. It is difficult (if not impossible) for working parents to leave their place of employment to transport their children to the Club, even more so with COVID-19 and public transportation is not an option for our youth. Thus, transportation is a vital component of our programmatic strategy and our overall service delivery for the youth of Coweta County. With the support of the Coweta Community Foundation, we will invest in vehicle maintenance, gas and driver salaries.

Coweta Family Connection Corp

$8,150 – Caring for Those Who Care: Mental Health and Wellness is the current buzzword as the Covid-19 pandemic grinds on and those in Newnan, Georgia continue to deal with the aftermath of the March 2020 tornado. Particularly for those individuals caring for the families and businesses impacted by the tornado, maintaining personal mental health and wellness gets pushed to the backburner. It is vital to the ongoing work of restoration to these individuals and families that the leaders and volunteers providing the care and support to tornado survivors also receive care to avoid personal burnout and improve resiliency.

This project, Caring for Those Who Care, seeks to provide individual and group counseling to volunteers or individuals serving with the Long-Term Recovery Group (LTRG), the Covid/Tornado Response Group, Expert Panel, Allocations Table, Coweta Community Foundation Tornado Ad Hoc Committee, and 501c3’s supporting LTR efforts.

The project will kick off with a Mental Wellness Event on Tuesday, September 27th to encourage and pamper those eligible for the services and introduce the collaborating partner, Sea Glass Therapy / Frayed Edges Foundation, and specifically Jennifer Yaeger, Sea Glass Therapy’s Clinical Director. An additional goal of the kickoff event is to provide mental wellness strategies that can be implemented by all whether they plan to seek counseling services through the grant or not.

Grant funding will provide up to twelve individuals with one individual counseling session and one group session per week for six weeks (from Sept. 28 – November 11, 2022). Individual sessions will be provided by the licensed counselors on staff at Sea Glass Therapy, while the weekly group session will be led by Jennifer Yaeger.

Demographics for those choosing to participate will be collected at the start of the project. A pre and post session survey will be completed by individuals participating in the grant funded counseling and the results will be available with project reporting.