COLUMBIA, S.C.—Gov. Nikki Haley Monday urged South Carolinians to donate to the One SC Fund to help victims of Hurricane Matthew in the state.
“We hope that everyone will go to www.onescfund.org and make sure that you find out how you can help, because this is a time now where, when you count your blessings, think there’s other people who need some,” she said.
SCE&G gave the fund a donation of $200,000 Monday.
She created the fund last year after historic floods swamped the state. The fund has distributed about $2 million and helped about 1,500 families. Non-profit groups get grants from the fund, which they use to rebuild homes.
Jim Powell, with Home Works, says, “The One SC Fund has enabled us to address homes that fall in the gap. There are so many homeowners across South Carolina, particularly in the rural areas, that do not have the resources to rebuild their lives, can’t afford market-rate contractors, don’t necessarily have family support. And many of the homes we’ve addressed with flood funding had previous conditions–their homes had been suffering because of deferred maintenance just because of their level of income, because of their poverty, because of their difficult health situations.”
JoAnn Turnquist, with Central Carolina Community Foundation, the group that administers the One SC Fund, says money from the fund also goes to other needs. The fund has already given out grants to help victims of Hurricane Matthew. She says, “$75,000 to go to Harvest Hope, who are bringing food, mobile food pantry trucks to all of those really tough areas that have been hit that don’t have grocery stores to go buy a loaf of bread or pick up water. And we also have two smaller grants to folks who need temporary housing.”
The fund provides money for homeowners who don’t have flood insurance and either don’t qualify for federal aid from FEMA or for whom federal aid won’t do much. Gov. Haley says, “FEMA doesn’t make everybody whole. I don’t know that we will be able to make everybody whole, but when we get our most vulnerable South Carolinians, the ones who really kind of just lost everything, that’s when you feel it.”