EMMET COUNTY — Ice storm damage recovery efforts are in full swing with many local businesses in need of help.
“This was not planned; nobody saw this coming,” said Northwest Michigan Habitat for Humanity executive director Sarah Ulrich.
The Northern Michigan ice storm that left 390,000 people without power has left mounds of damage for people to begin cleaning up.
Ulrich is now tasked with an additional obstacle while fighting against a deadline to complete a project that new homeowners are depending on.
“This is a 38 home affordable housing development that we’ve been working on the last couple of years. We expect to complete this at the end of the calendar year,” said Ulrich. “The storm has impacted us by really slowing down progress, it shut our site down for a couple of weeks. Many of our homes are already sold.”
Before workers can get back to building there’s an additional obstacle in the way.
“We’re still trying to manage the cleanup. As you can kind of see throughout the site, there’s a lot of downed trees and limbs,” said Ulrich. “The amount of cleanup to make the sites accessible and safe for our staff and volunteers is pretty extensive.”
This is where Petoskey Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation stepped up to help local nonprofits with their response fund.
It’s a grant program that has raised $70,000 in funds that they’ve combined with $50,000 dollars to provide assistance for the ice storm aftermath local businesses now face. Executive director David Jones said while working from home without power, his team swiftly moved to knowing the need for help wouldn’t be far behind.
“When the storm hit, obviously the community wants to act quickly. We set up an emergency response fund. Kind of stole the playbook out of the covid pandemic and set up this fund fairly quickly,” said Jones.
Ulrich is one of the grant recipients.
“Disaster relief and emergency cleanup is not part of our normal operating budget. The funds that we are receiving, they’re going to help us with these cleanup efforts,” said Ulrich. “We’ll be able to hire professionals that could come and safely remove the trees that are causing potential hazards for our staff, volunteers and future homeowners. We don’t want to have trees that are dying and falling on homes down the road either.”
The plan from the community foundation is to keep the program rolling on an ongoing basis to help non-profits affected by the storm. As of now they aren’t sure how much money will continue to roll in. What they do know is the need for help is far reaching.
“We hope to continue it, as long as needed. And, we’ll see where it ends. But, you know, we’re going to keep at it and we can still get more donations to it,” said Jones.
If you would like to view available grants through Petoskey Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation, click the link https://www.grantinterface.com/Home/Logon?urlkey=phsacfgrants
