Lilly Stein
When Hurricane Katrina broke the levy in New Orleans, Lilly Stein and her family evacuated to Blount County, Tennessee. They later found that the home they lived in for years had been covered by 5 feet of water for 3 weeks. Not having much to come back to and not wanting to expose themselves to another hurricane, they decided to move permanently to Tennessee. She and her recently retired husband bought land in Oneida, built a cabin, and decided to divide their time between Scott and Blount Counties. Long involved in charitable work in New Orleans, they sought out Terrie Cross who soon got them involved with Operation Sharing Tennessee, the Salvation Army, and the Appalachian Life Quality Initiative (ALQI). Thus, a disaster in New Orleans became a blessing to Tennessee.
While helping in the ALQI and Salvation Army offices, Lilly heard Terrie express a desire for a data base that could be shared by all local charitable organizations. Lilly responded, “I can do that!” After several weeks of brainstorming, Lilly contracted a programmer and the data base started to take shape. The project was funded by the Salvation Army and a private donor. After months of fine tuning, she and other volunteers had input over 1600 records of clients.
The data base allows the charitable organization to cross reference clients by address, last 4 digits of social security numbers, last and first name, ages, income, organizations that have assisted them, dates and type of assistance given. When local papers list people arrested for drug use, they are also posted in the data base. Saved or scanned documents can be attached to clients data file. The data base is password protected and can only be accessed by authorized organizations.
This information can help charities to more efficiently help the needy by generating reports that identify what kind of help is most needed. The reports can summarize where help is most frequently requested, where it is most given, average age of clients in need, average numbers in the households of those assisted, how much they have been assisted and by whom, and patterns related to when and what kind of needs they have. It also helps identify and curb abuse by those who would seek duplicate help from several organizations and use precious resources for illegitimate purposes. Since it is web based, the data base enables any authorized user to access it, cannot be lost or destroyed, and reduces paper cost and storage space.
Many people in Morgan and Scott counties desperately need help, and many organizations give their time and money to meet the needs of those less fortunate. Both the donors and the recipients of this aid are indebted to Lilly and Terrie for creating this innovative way of ensuring that charitable donations are used effectively. At present, ALQI, The Salvation Army, Morgan-Scott Project, and three churches are active users of the data base. Other organizations in the Morgan-Scott area who wish to participate in this project should contact Terrie Cross at ALQI.
Article by Ray Boles
