TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

9/11 Aid Groups Hurt As Funds Wane

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: August 17, 2008

NEW YORK - Terry Grace Sears knows she still has work to do helping the families of Sept. 11 victims, seeing the proof last week on the faces of kids just beginning to open up about their parents' deaths in the terrorist attack.

"This year, some kids were able to express things for the first time," Sears said after a summer retreat for the children. "Particularly the young boys were grieving."

But Sears, executive director of a charity called Tuesday's Children, isn't sure how many more kids she will be able to help. Her agency and others like it are struggling to stay afloat as donations dry up nearly seven years after the attack.

Several are closing, some are cutting budgets and others are rethinking their purpose as donors become harder to persuade.

"We fight every day for money," said Sears, whose charity cut its staff by a third last year to 11 people.

The groups sprang up after Sept. 11, offering families of the victims everything from counseling to music lessons. They have long relied on funding from an American Red Cross long-term relief fund that distributed more than $1 billion in direct aid and recovery grants to more than 100 organizations.

But on June 30, the Red Cross distributed its last $40 million to 26 groups it still funded. Two groups have grants that last a few more months.

"We have no more money to award," said Joan Hernandez, deputy director of the Red Cross' Sept. 11 recovery program. The program used to have nearly 300 employees and now has two, she said. "We will be gone at the end of the year."

The last grants included $1.37 million to South Nassau Communities Hospital on Long Island, which shut down counseling programs for thousands of family members and first responders when the Red Cross funding expired.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT