Monday evening CBS 7 news from Midland presented a story that painted the Jeff Davis County Relief Fund board in very bad light.  Luckily most of it was untrue.  Shannon Murray stated that “board members refused to go on camera” while giving board members credit for telephone interviews.  What Mrs. Shannon did not know was that none of the board members had the time to meet with her Monday afternoon because all of the board members who were in town were in the process of meeting a self imposed deadline to get letters out to victims by Wednesday morning.  As of press time, all applicants for home grants have been sent certified letters informing them of what the fund is going to be able to do for them.  Because these funds concern themselves with personal finances of victims and donors, board members have opted to keep all information confidential.  The board is still pondering the best action for agricultural funds and will communicate with those applicants very soon.  CBS 7 claims to have an additional $250,000 available for victims.  Board members encourage victims to apply for those funds as well.  The Relief Fund was not made aware that those funds existed until Tuesday morning when the statement appeared on the CBS 7 website.

Since April 9th, the Relief Fund board has formed and met regularly, and received 501c3 status with the IRS, a process which typically takes more than six months.  The board has raised funds, acknowledged receipts, developed an application process in English and Spanish, spoken with victims, received applications, and made decisions on how to best distribute the funds based on need.  As a part of this process the board has met with CPA’s and attorneys in order that all donors, recipients, and board members would be properly protected.  To the victims, this process certainly seems endless.  For board members, there are not enough hours in the day.

It has been 19 weeks since the Rock House fire started and shortly over three months since it ended.  Given the amount of good the board is going to be able to do for  victims of the fire, this is a relatively short amount of time.