Rebuilding St. Thomas, USVI

The STRT is happy to announce FEMA sponsored Invitational Travel for skilled volunteers coming to assist in the rebuild! We have 5 full teams scheduled between now and end of July (this will likley be extended) and are excited to be hosting our first team from the United Methodists Volunteers in Mission (UMVM) from Southern Mississippi. This partnership with FEMA will make the STRT even more impactful and be able to use your donations further than ever before. We are eternally grateful for this partnership and look forward to all of the magic, and hardwork, to come. 

These first 7 FEMA IT volunteers have hit the ground running and will be working on two very vulnerable displaced clients to get them back in to Safe, Sanitary, and Secure homes. We have had very little rainfall in the last 5 months, leading to a severe drought. Last week, the skies opened up and the island has seen flash flooding and all of the blue tarps installed 18 months ago failing / leaking. While we've been battling some heavy rains, our Construction Team has been adaptive and flexible in amending their work plan. Roofs are the majority of our scope of work, but alot goes in to the interior of homes as well. 

As usual, our volunteers and clients have hit it off quite well. Working side by side with the client, they are on track to close this client's case by next Monday (all while closing another case last week)!

Some other successes from the STRT include:

• Successfully completing the first 4 of 8 weeks of our Storm Strong Program (a collaboration with the National Science Foundation and the University of the Virgin Islands in which we work with up to 20 families with children in grades 6-12 over an extended period of time to teach them about our local hazard risks, help them investigate options and measures they can take to be more resilient, and faciliate their development and implementation of Community Transfer Projects. 
• Successfully designed and implemented several individual home gardens for our most vulnerable clients.
• Begun surveys for our Commuinty Response Plan initiative (launching this September).
• Continued territorial collaboration with the other Virgin Islands to advocate for a better quality of life and recovery for all Virgin Islanders. 

Thank you for all of your support. Your donations keep this organization going and are directly impacting the lives of those who need it the most. On behalf of all Virgin Islanders, we thank you for your commitment to our mission!