Daphne, Ala. — The American Red Cross, United Ways of Alabama and the African Universal Church in Daphne have teamed up to help hurricane survivors in Baldwin and Mobile counties.

Building Community Resilience, a program to help survivors rebound from the events of a natural disaster, will offer post-disaster stress education, social networking, community mobilization and outreach and integration opportunities. The American Red Cross gave the United Ways grant money to fund the program, according to Becky Booker, United Ways executive director.

“They (the Red Cross) granted the funds to us with guidelines and said, ‘Go out, look in these communities and figure out a way to — you know — subgrant it,’ ” Booker said. “What we did was we put out an RFP (request for proposal) and the African Universal Church was one of (15 organizations) who made a proposal, the committee I had put together scored that proposal well and they were funded.”

The Red Cross awarded $650,750 in grant money to the United Ways; $50,000 — the maximum award allowed — was given in September to the African Universal Church, Booker said.

Each organization awarded grant money had expressed a different goal in its proposal, Booker said.

“Each organization was able to come up with a grant that fit within their mission: The Shoulder (will) help hurricane survivors who have substance abuse issues; the Gulf Shores United Methodist Church Servant Ministries received a grant to look at the service providers of all of the people who’ve been providing services to the folks who’ve been affected by the hurricanes,” she said.

The Building Community Resilience Program in Daphne, begun Oct. 1, will focus on recreation and mental health, Debra Rowe, a spokesperson with the African Universal Church, said.

“Basically it’s to let people get out that’s been shut in, (those) that don’t know what to do since the hurricane and may not have recovered since,” she said. “We don't know exactly what they may need but we are hoping to assist them.”

“It’s not that we’re just going to issue out money to them,” she added. “We have activities that we have planned. We assist their kids. We take them on outings like movies or the skating rink. We had a trunk ’n’ treat for Halloween.”

Counselors have been tapped to help people cope with weather events such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita or Wilma, Rowe said.

“Also, we’re gonna have a banquet and we’re gonna have a town meeting on Nov. 26 and this will allow people to know more about what it is that we’re trying to do to help people to recover,” she added. The meeting will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Monday, at the African Universal Church Resource Center in Daphne. For more information, call Rowe at 626-6930.

A complete list of organizations awarded grant money for hurricane recovery programs (excluding Daphne’s) is as follows.

•Bay Area Women’s Coalition (Mobile)

•Compassion Coalition of Tuscaloosa County

•Family Counseling Center of Mobile

•Gulf Shores United Methodist Church Servant Ministries

•Lighthouse Church of the Apostolic Faith (Grand Bay)

•Lighthouse Community Development Corporation and the International Community Center (Grand Bay)

•Lutheran Disaster Response (Bayou La Batre)

•Mobile Mental Health

•Operation HomeCare

•Senior Citizens Services (Mobile)

•The Shoulder (Daphne)

•The United Christian Community Association (Safford)

•Volunteer Information Center (Montgomery)

•YMCA of Selma-Dallas County

“It’s very exciting,” Booker said of all the programs. “We focus so much (attention) on the immediate needs of these survivors for the last two years and so now it’s great to kind of look outside the box at some of the other needs and focus on those, and this grant from the Red Cross made that possible.”

Grant money for each organization was distributed in one lump sum, but Booker said she hopes the programs prove successful and the Red Cross awards additional funds.

“We're hoping that we’ll do such a great job that we’ll get some more money,” Booker said.