United Way of Greater Houston
50 Waugh Drive
Houston, Texas 77007

TGCR -VOAD Chair Rolan Chambless opened the meeting at 10:15 a.m. and thanked Education & Training committee member Mardie Menke for hosting the last meeting at TranStar.  He also thanked Paul and Carolyn for providing breakfast this morning and Sandra for their usual hospitality in providing the coffee for the meetings. Rolan noted that Julie was absent and addressing the illness of her children. Rolan also took a moment to welcome Branch back after recent surgery and recognized the presence of Tim Kidwell at the meeting.

Rolan reintegrated the fact that he enjoyed having something to eat at the meetings and announced that in March, we would be passing around a cup for donations to supplement expenditures being made for breakfast.  It should be noted that a cup was passed around at this meeting to support the March meeting breakfast.

Group members were asked to wear name tags to assist us in getting to know each other better and we were asked to introduce ourselves and tell the group a little about what each of our organizations did.  Rolan also requested that to the extent possible that organizations continue sending the same representatives to the meeting.

As the meeting progressed, groups were asked to report on Haiti Disaster response activities.  The following are some of the actions being undertaken by member groups;

TBM

–        Deployed two water purification units to orphanages in Haiti that can produce 11,000 gallons of pure water a day.

–        Have some relief crews taking some 5,000 drip water purifiers with them to Haiti

Red Cross

-          reported that through the international organization and its affiliates more than 49 flights of relief supplies have been deployed to Haiti

-          They have a new 50,000 sq.ft. warehouse to store and distribute relief goods.

-          They are distributing hygiene kits, blankets and water containers more than 5,000 people each day.

-          Has a pre-recovery assessment team working with the World Bank, the Haitian government, Inter American Development Bank, the UN and others to look at medium and long term recovery.

-          Have sent over 3 million packaged meals and committed or spent over $67 million thus far.

UMC

-          reported that the Executive Director of UMCOR and another leader had been killed in the collapse of the Hotel Montana

-          they have 5 mobile medical clinics here in Texas ready for deployment to Haiti

-          They have medical personnel already on site in Haiti

-          Early response team there with health/bedding kits.

ADS/ADRA

-          They have staff of a medical unit on the ground in Haiti working in collaboration with Loma Linda Hospital

-          Distributing water purification tablets and have 70 purification units on the ground.

TZU CHI Foundation

-          Coordinating a global fund raising campaign

-          Have doctors standing by for deployment

-          Have deployed a relief assessment team

-          Have relief supplies including: instant rice, blankets, eating utensils, clothing, vitamins and tents scheduled to go in on Feb.8.

Core Alliance

  -  Spoke of their efforts at establishing a temporary housing project that would be more suitable and applicable than proposed tent cities.

Salvation Army

-          Lost staff and use of facilities in Haiti.

-          Has medical teams in Haiti and has distributed 350,00 meals and over 100,000 blankets as part of their relief effort.

-           

NOTE:  Other groups spoke of additional response activities and are heavily involved in Haiti relief, however this is just a sample of what VOAD member organizations are doing in Haiti.

Gloria of Asset Building Network spoke of her experience in working with Haitian groups in SW Houston as they were attempting to organize a relief effort and the need for more involvement on the part of VOAD or some other organization in the provision of technical assistance to these novice groups.  Rolan expressed his concern over how this could be accomplished without putting individual organizations in awkward positions.  More examination and discussion of this issue is required.

Joe Watts, the Executive Director of Adventist Community Services, and his family were in attendance at the meeting and he was given the opportunity of speaking to the group and providing more insight into what ACS does.  He indicated that they have a national mandate and agreement with over 35 states to do donations management for all undesignated goods.  They receive, sort and distribute those goods to a variety of organizations and agencies doing disaster response actions.

ACS has two semi-mobile distribution units here in Texas which can be deployed when needed to disaster sites.

Mardie spoke of the upcoming CERT trainings and encouraged VOAD members to get involved and share the training information with our individual group members. She also spoke of the CERT Rodeo that is coming up on Feb. 20, 2010 and encouraged members to attend.

Carol spoke on the recent State VOAD elections and announced that Larry Shine was the newly elected President and that he has hit the ground running. 

Rolan then spoke more about some of his thoughts and actions to be undertaken during his administration.  Among the topics for further discussion were:

-          a review of the VOAD by-laws by an appointed committee

-          Executive Committee  members conducting monthly meetings

-          VOAD presence at the EOC

-          The Homeland Security Conference

-          Finances

It was announced that the March meeting would be hosted by NCI at their (Westwood area) facility at 9700 Bissonnet Suite 2000.

The meeting was adjourned at noon.

Minutes respectfully submitted by:

Mr. LeVonne Harrell (HCCSD)

for Julie Reid, TCCR-VOAD, Secretary