Goal Proposal
October 4, 2006

Disaster can occur in many forms and at any time. The Disaster Assistance Committee proposes to define disaster as causing loss of shelter or an impairment of an NRLA business in the aftermath of fire or other natural disaster. At present, the proposed Disaster Assistance Program has three components:

1. To provide immediate financial relief to NRLA members’ employees through a limited gift program.
2. To provide immediate peer support through a volunteer network including but not limited to advice from NRLA disaster survivors, a website bulletin board, and visiting teams of NRLA members to disaster sites.
3. To provide dealer education for disaster planning through a disaster planning manual, seminars and regional representative involvement.

Financial Relief: The limited gift program is intended to provide quick, emergency financial relief to NRLA members and NRLA employees when unexpected loss of shelter occurs due to fire or natural disaster. In the case of associate members, this would include employees residing the NRLA territory. Applicants must submit claims within thirty (30) days following the disaster. The cash grant will be available for up to $2,000 following review and signed approval of the application by: 1. DAC Chair or designee 2. NRLA President or Vice President 3.Empoloyer or sponsor from the grant applicant’s place of employment.
An essential component of the program is NRLA member involvement. The NRLA will contribute 75 percent of the gift and the NRLA member will contribute 25 percent of the gift. These are outright gifts. Administrative fees or requests for repayment violate the terms of the agreement
If a dealer is also affected by the disaster (e.g. hurricane, tornado) the above named NRLA disaster sign-off group can waive the member’s financial involvement. In the case of dealer hardship, NRLA will assume full financial responsibility for the grant.

Peer Support: The Committee will establish guidelines based on industry expertise and seek to elicit volunteers from the membership. Volunteers will be personally available to dealers in crisis and review the guidelines with the disaster victims on an individual basis. The Committee recognizes the social and emotional benefits of shared experience or a listening ear. As a professional group of shelter industry specialists, the easy access of fraternity can provide enormous benefit to NRLA members.

Dealer Education: The Committee hopes to access disaster planning materials from insurance and computer vendors in order to provide dealers with a framework for individual disaster planning. The next step would be educating NRLA Regional Directors, the Education Department and the Lumber Cooperator in the process. NRLA Disaster Survivors report that they never paid attention to disaster planning prior to catastrophe. Regional Directors could be charged with bringing dealers to a preparedness state. The efforts could be similar to NRLA’s efforts during the 1980’s in raising dealers’ awareness to succession planning.

Disaster Planning Committee
Bruce Charleson
David Moore
Margaret Price-Sims
Marie Naughton, Chair