Crisis Response Fund Wrapping Up Pandemic Role

By Steve Burger, WNIN

June 29, 2021

As recovery from the pandemic continues, the COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund of the Greater Evansville Region will make its last disbursements later this summer.

To date, the crisis response fund has raised more than $6.6 million and distributed over $4.3 million to agencies in a five county region of Southwestern Indiana to help meet emergency needs during the pandemic.

The fund will make its final disbursements September 1. One of the organizers, Welborn Baptist Foundation CEO Pat Creech says its purpose was to help the region come out of the pandemic in better shape than before. He hopes that trend will continue.

Creech said, “Rather than rebuilding things that should be torn down, or stopped, or reimagined, we would encourage people to take this opportunity and start new.”

To that end, the fund announced that it would award up to $1 million to a collaborative effort that reimagines the systems for how non-profit agencies, funders, local government and the private sector can work together to meet common goals.

One of the most enduring memories of the pandemic is the weekly Feed Evansville traffic jam.

With social media proving to be a breeding ground for misinformation on the coronavirus and vaccines, finding ways to address that and educate people is a major topic these days. It turns out there is a group with a lot of experience dealing with misinformation and viruses.

WNIN is the NPR/PBS affiliate in Evansville, Indiana. We serve Southwestern Indiana, Western Kentucky and Southern Illinois from our multimedia facility located on the Ohio River in downtown Evansville. For the past several years, the recognized quality of our local news has placed us among the best small market radio news organizations in the nation.