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CNNC Awarded $48,160 Grant for Emergency Preparedness Program


The School of Human Environmental Sciences' Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC) has been awarded a $48,160 grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation (BCBSNC Foundation). The foundation has awarded a total of more than $325,000 in grants to 10 North Carolina nonprofit groups and government agencies including CNNC that have particularly innovative ideas for reaching vulnerable populations before and after emergencies. The BCBSNC Foundation awards are in response to the challenges faced by the elderly, ill, poor and immigrants during Hurricane Katrina.

hurricane aftermath photo

CNNC is receiving the grant for the center's effort to build relationships between immigrants and emergency relief agencies across the state. As part of the program, CNNC will provide emergency preparedness training to professional interpreters and participants in an immigrant leadership program. Those people will then be linked to disaster relief teams.

The other grant recipients are The Triangle Chapter of the American Red Cross, Community in Crisis, The Cape Fear Council of Governments, Ashe County, Jackson County, Pamlico Information Network Enterprise, The Triangle United Way, The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, The Arc of Alamance County. Other awarded plans include an effort in eastern North Carolina to use church networks to help communities prepare; a project in a mountain county to use ham radio for emergency communications; and a coastal initiative to create a mapping system to allow responders to locate homes of the ill, elderly and disabled.

Following Hurricane Katrina, response agencies in Louisiana reported a variety of problems reaching the elderly, ill, disabled and others in need. Nearly 60 percent of the deaths in Louisiana were of people over the age of 60, and 215 people died after being stranded in nursing homes and hospitals. There were few systems in place to define, locate and help people with special needs, and traditional means of communicating with hospitals and other emergency medical services proved useless. "Hurricane Katrina revealed real challenges that communities and agencies face in making sure that residents in greatest need are cared for in a crisis," said Kathy Higgins, president of the BCBSNC Foundation. "North Carolina agencies are ready to learn from those lessons, and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation is pleased to support these practical yet innovative ways to reach vulnerable people before, during and after an emergency."

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), North Carolina was affected by 40 percent of the 62 weather-related disasters that struck the United States between 1980 and 2004, more than any other state in the country. Each disaster cost at least $1 billion, according to estimates. The state also has a high proportion of vulnerable groups, with 14 percent of North Carolina's population living below the poverty level, 12 percent with an age of 65 or older, and approximately 21 percent being disabled.

"I congratulate the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation on their efforts to improve emergency preparedness in North Carolina," said Bryan E. Beatty, Secretary of the N.C. Department of Crime Control & Public Safety, which heads the state's emergency preparedness and response efforts. "In addition to the great work being done by these grants, I hope people will log on to our new Web site designed to help individuals and families be ready for emergencies: www.ReadyNC.org."

The BCBSNC Foundation announced the availability of emergency preparedness grants in January 2006. By the March 3 deadline, it had received 59 requests totaling more than $2 million. As part of the grant program, the BCBSNC Foundation will convene a conference of grant recipients next year to discuss lessons learned and effective practices that can be implemented by other agencies seeking to help vulnerable residents.

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