Over the past few months, the one constant has been that nothing is constant. Each of us, as individuals, and as members of families, communities, and workplaces, has experienced the traumatic impact of an unimaginable public health crisis. At Allegany Franciscan Ministries, we remain committed to supporting the communities we serve, as well as ensuring our ministry’s resilience through this demanding and difficult time.

To assist our grant partners, we have taken the following steps:

Together with Trinity Health, our parent organization, Allegany Franciscan Ministries is faced with significant financial challenges. Several difficult decisions were made to capture savings in our grants budget, operating costs, and personnel expenses. As you may know, we cancelled our FY20 Major Grants, and will not have a FY21 Major Grants Program. At the same time, we made $900,000 available across our communities to support COVID-19 response efforts.

Staff has been impacted as well. We are all working remotely; most of our staff team has reduced schedules, now working four days a week. Additionally, Cheri Wright-Jones' position as our Regional VP for Tampa Bay has been eliminated effective May 30th. This is especially difficult since Cheri has been an incredible, talented, and committed force for the good of the community across the Tampa Bay region and especially in Wimauma.



Allegany remains committed to the vulnerable communities and people we have always served. We are confident in the ability of all of us to pull together during this especially difficult time. As Pope Francis tweeted earlier this month: “A crisis is the moment to make a choice. This pandemic is a time of social crisis. How should we react? With perseverance, silence, and fidelity to God and decisions made earlier. A moment of crisis is like passing through fire to become stronger.” #HomilySantaMarta (@Pontifex, 5:27 AM May 2, 2020)

In January, we welcomed new board leadership and board members at Allegany Franciscan Ministries. Emery Ivery serves as the Chairperson, Arlease Hall as the Vice Chairperson, and Katrina Wright as the Secretary. In addition, Debbie Coakley and Sr. Cindy Matthews, OSF have been elected to the board of directors. Read full announcement.

Lincoln Park

The Lincoln Park Council for the Common Good partnered with City of Fort Pierce, Dynix Diagnostix, Indian River State College, and Florida Department of Health to facilitate COVID-19 testing in the Lincoln Park community. Free, drive-thru testing was offered May 11-15 at Ilous Ellis Park. The Department of Health will receive all positive test results so they can initiate contact tracing to try and determine when the person became ill and to continue efforts to contain the virus. Lastly, individuals will be referred if additional health services are needed.

We value our communication with you which is why it is so important that we have your most current contact information on file. Please remember to update your personal user and organization accounts in our online grants management system if there are any changes.

If there are individuals on the organization account that are no longer active with you, please reach out to Carla Batts at cbatts@afmfl.org or 727-507-9668 to inform which contacts should be made inactive.

 

 

THANK YOU!

The 2020 Census is underway, and households across the United States are responding every day. By now, you likely have received multiple mailings from the U.S. Census Bureau, including an invitation to respond to the 2020 Census and follow-up postcards and letters.

This fiscal year through our Tau Grant program, we have provided funding to organizations conducting outreach for the 2020 Census and Voter Registration targeting communities that have historically low rates of participation in the Census and voter registration. A local partner, Florida Institute for Community Studies, Inc. (FICS) was awarded funding to provide community outreach sessions targeting farm workers, immigrants, and seniors in South Hillsborough County. Due to COVID-19, the organization redirected outreach efforts to social media campaigns. Since then, FICS has created a promotional video to educate the community about the importance of the Census.

In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the U.S. Census Bureau has adjusted 2020 Census operations to protect the health and safety of the Census Bureau staff and the public. The self-response phase has been extended to October 31 instead of July 31. In-person enumeration will begin August 11 ending October 31. As of May 17, the national response rate was 59.6% and 57.1% in the state of Florida including over 5 million responses.

To keep tabs on your community, county, and state progress , click here. While you are keeping tabs on local response rates, encourage others in your community to respond to the 2020 Census.