Amarillo Area Foundation gives funds to those affected by recent wildfires

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — Through its Panhandle Disaster Relief Fund, the Amarillo Area Foundation is helping those across the High Plains recover from wildfires.

“We are nearing close to three million dollars coming in. Some of those are pledges or campaigns that are currently in place right now. About three million so far has come in, and that has just been incredible,” said Lara Escobar, AAF vice president of community investment.

Escobar said having the funds available allows them not only to tackle immediate needs but long-term ones as well.

“This fund is really important because we can kind of get funding out the door immediately to make sure people are safe and in shelter, but then we work with those long-term committees in the counties that were affected to say ‘ok what is that effort look like now?’” said Escobar.

Escobar added that not all of those donations were just made locally. They have been made by people from all across Texas and the rest of the country.

“It’s hard to know exactly how long those donations will continue to come in, but we have been blown away by the support that we have seen so far,” said Escobar.

Escobar said when the AAF enacts its disaster relief fund, it is done with partners in the communities.

“As a community foundation, we can not make distributions to individuals, so we have to look for those partnerships. So that looks like 501c3s, so nonprofits, churches, ministerial alliances, which are multiple churches that have come together, and even city and government entities, and each of those organizations are going to be doing their relief efforts differently,” said Escobar.

Escobar added, “Most of them have a committee that is set up and taking applications from those individuals that were affected and tiering those based on a lot of different factors, so we really vet and have trust in those partnerships with those communities to grant the dollars to them and let those communities decide what do they need because they are the ones on the ground, they are the experts about their community and the people that live there.”

One nonprofit the Amarillo Area Foundation awarded a grant to was the 100 Club of the Texas Panhandle to help with its mission to support area first responders.

“They gave us an immediate grant early on in the month of March to help for $25,000 because that’s all they could do at that time without board approval. And then they’ve since given us another $100,000 grant. And that money has meant so much to us. We have a list of about 52 volunteer fire departments that help with these fires. And we’ve been trying to tick away at that list. And as of right now we’ve helped about 31 of those to the tune of about $485,000. Amarillo area foundation gave us 125 of that.” said Suzanne Talley, executive director of the 100 Club of the Texas Panhandle.

Talley said it means so much to deliver these checks to area fire departments.

“We’ve seen so many grown men cry because they are exhausted physically and mentally and not only are they volunteering their time to serve and protect, but they are also having to look for grants and do fundraisers to get the equipment that they need to do their job safely and we just want to help them and be a part of that,” said Talley.

Escobar added that the AAF has received 1.3 million dollars out the door through their fund and their fund through Amarillo National Bank.

“We feel strongly that is a really good amount that we’ve been able to get out into the communities knowing there is still a lot of work to do and we are going to continue to assess that with the communities as their needs evolve,” said Escobar.

Escobar explained what some of the 1.3 million dollars has gone towards.

“It’s been a little bit of everything, we have done a lot of individual support. Whether that was basic needs, food, getting people into hotels maybe they didn’t have a place or family member to stay with, so they put them up in hotels, and then some of it, the recent donations or distributions we have made is going to the long term committees, to really help them set up as they do their assessments, said Escobar.”

Escobar said the Panhandle Disaster Relief Fund started in 2006 in response to a wildfire at that time and she said they have just kept that fund open and ready to go in the event of a disaster.