Funds for tornado assistance need to be distributed, and volunteers are needed to do so

Little Rock, Arkansas – In collaboration with Heart of Arkansas United Way, Little Rock Cares is looking for volunteers to assess and rank grant applications submitted by Little Rock citizens.

Following the tornado that struck the city on March 31, people who require assistance with paying for bills will receive more than $400,000 in relief payments.

“We are looking for volunteers who need to be residents of the City of Little Rock. Folks who want to give us maybe 10 or 15 hours of their time to look over these applications, review them, and make some recommendations about what we’re going to be able to fund,” said Mollie Palmer, vice president of communication and engagement for the Heart of Arkansas United Way.

After receiving an account, volunteers can complete reviews whenever it suits them.

“It’s really important to us that residents have a voice in this and it isn’t just my decision or other people who works here decision,” said Palmer.

Volunteers will receive a set number of applications to review, out of the approximately three hundred that are available for selection.

“We’ll split our volunteers into smaller sub-committees that each review about 25 applications a piece, and what they’ll do is use the criteria that we kind of finalize with the city of Little Rock on what the highest priority will be to decide which of these we can meet,” said Palmer. “Then we’ll figure out from there what that dollar amount total is going to be and how we can spread that out.”

The volunteers’ identities are kept private and the actual evaluation procedure is blind to them.

“Any identifying information, names, addresses, that sort of thing, will be hidden from the volunteers so they’ll just see the content of what was in the application,” said Palmer. “We want to have as many eyes on those as possible so we can make sure we are putting our money where its most needed.”

Heart of Arkansas United Way intends to complete the applications by Thanksgiving, or in the near future.

By year’s end, the actual payments will have been made.

Volunteers must sign up by this Friday, October 6. To apply for the recovery grant volunteer position, go to Heartaruw.org, the website of Heart of Arkansas United Way, if you would like to serve.