Love City Strong Inc

Love City Strong's recovery and relief projects have evolved organically to address multiple community needs that are not presently addressed by other agencies. Our goals are to fill these gaps as we encounter them, create long term solutions that are scalable to other areas in the Caribbean, and leverage the community’s talents to get the job done.

Our projects:

Disaster Preparedness:
LCS has created a three-component plan to ensure that our community and our team are better equipped to respond to natural disaster events: Supply readiness, response training, and wellness checks for hundreds of seniors after major weather events.

COVID19 Response:
In response to the COVID19 pandemic, we partnered with World Central Kitchen to provide free meals to seniors and families across the island. Over 11,000 individual meals were hand delivered by our team from April through July 1, 2020. We paid for and handed out PPE to medical providers and first responders to fill the gap before these were provided by the federal government, and provided over 2,000 free reusable masks to residents and visitors, which are manufactured by a St. John business.

Home Rebuild:
The Resilient Housing Initiative (RHI) focuses on construction projects of a variety of sizes and scopes designed to return St. John’s seniors and families to stable living situations, and to ensure that components of their primary residences are rebuilt in a manner that is more disaster resistant. Crews of Virgin Islands residents are in the field every week working hard to finish these homes safely, efficiently, and more resilient than ever. 35 homes have been rebuilt since the project began in September, 2018.

Water Quality:
In 2018, LCS began a Water Quality Project aimed at testing and raising awareness of cistern water quality for the island’s most vulnerable residents. The LCS water scientists visited and tested the cistern water of over 200 homes, at zero cost to the residents. Our team’s efforts lead to exciting new developments that will create long term health benefits for high-risk individuals, have a positive economic impact for them as they reduce their dependence on bottled water, and reduce the strain on St. John’s fragile waste management system over time. In 2019 and 2020, we installed 70 three-phase water filtration units on homes belonging to seniors and families with small children at zero cost to the residents.

Emergency Support:
This project was created to help link emergency personnel with St. John residents in need. Over the course of 2 years, we introduced over 2,500 individual interventions into the community with the goal of making it easier for first responders to find homes when dispatched by 911. Along the way, we mapped thousands of residences and structures on St. John, and have partnered with the UVI RT Park and VI web development company ShoreIQ to create a first responder mobile app that will show first responders exactly how to get where they need to go.

Since our creation as a grassroots organization of volunteers in 2017 and our evolution to an official nonprofit, LCS has successfully worked with partnering agencies in both the public and private sector on the various initiatives within our stated mission and goals. It is our belief that these partnerships are the future of disaster response and recovery. In every one of our undertakings, we seek to grow through these partnerships while leveraging the innate skills and talents of the St. John community, with the overall goal of strengthening the island from the roots up in the areas of disaster preparedness and response. We always partner with another nonprofit organization and a private sector entity on every project that we action, whether short term or long term.

Our team is made up of both highly experienced professionals in the disaster response industry, and all of us are members of the community that we work within and serve. This allows us to access a variety of resources and assets necessary to complete our projects while simultaneously keeping in close contact with our community to ensure that all of our projects and methodology are the right fit for our community and our clients.

In addition to our Board and management, our project teams encompass our philosophy of public and private partnership.

The Go Team, a full time team, is the heart of all of LCS’ projects. This team serves as the on-the-ground source for client outreach, information dissemination, and works in close partnership with other organizations who need a hand executing projects that align with our mission and goals. The team is comprised of St. John residents from different areas of the island, and the members vary in ages and backgrounds, reflecting the diversity of the community. The Go Team is the front-line for all of our projects; they connect with St. John residents on the ground and provide a familiar and friendly face to check in with our clients once project work begins.

In certain areas, LCS employs skilled contractors and businesses that are based on St. John to assist us with our projects. This ensures that disaster recovery funds stay in the local economy, and helps build strategic partnerships for future response events. We always prioritize using Virgin Islands based contractors, businesses, and individuals for any of our work that is needed rather than outsourcing. It is our belief that our community is better served when local talent is utilized for every component of our projects.

It is our goal to ensure that all LCS employees and independent contractors receive training from highly skilled, licensed professional entities, and receive such licensing in turn, when possible. This allows them to take the knowledge and skills gained while working for LCS and use them for their personal growth as contractors or potential business owners, thus further stimulating St. John’s economy and expanding the job market.

From November 2017 to January 2021, we have accomplished the following:

+ Rebuilt 35 homes belonging to seniors (24), families with small children or infants (2), or persons with a disability or chronic health condition (4).

+ Provided free mold sanitation and additional remediation education for 150 homes belonging to seniors and families with small children or infants.

+ Tested the cistern water quality of over 200 homes belonging to seniors, families with small children or infants, and persons with a disability or chronic health condition. We provided temporary water potability kits to 60 homes in the the original pool of 200. We then provided and installed 70, three-phase water filtration units to 70 homes in the original pool of the 200.

+ Introduced 2,500 interventions into the community to help first responders find those in need. These include: File of Life Cards, free custom address markers and signs, and waterproof flashing emergency lights visible from up to 5,000 feet away.

+ Provided and hand delivered Over 11,000 individual meals to seniors and families during the Virgin Islands' first COVID19 lockdown; and provided over 2,000 reusable masks to residents and visitors.

+ Created three different storage spaces to house emergency supplies necessary to the community's well being in the event of a natural disaster. The sites house a variety of readiness supplies including solar-powered portable lanterns provided by MPowerd, first aid supplies, and road clearing equipment. Additionally, LCS was tasked by FEMA with storage of prepositioned MREs and boxed water at these sites, and FEMA facilitates the rotation of fresh supplies when necessary.

+ We provide training and resources for our team and for other nonprofit organization on St. John that act as first responders. 100% of the LCS staff have been successfully CPR certified and First Aid certified. 75% completed Emergency Medical Response (EMR) training authorized by the VI Department of Health and coordinated by licensed emergency response professionals from the State of Connecticut. LCS also paid for members of St. John Rescue and Love City Community Network (LCCN) organizations to participate in these trainings.

Our Go Team received Crisis Intervention (CI) training from the Virgin Islands Public Safety and Support Foundation to better help them interact and empathize with residents who are experiencing emotional and psychological trauma.

100% of our staff has completed Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training, and our Operations Manager completed Advanced CERT training, which allows him to train not only our staff but to assist and provide support to the Virgin Islands Territory Emergency Management Agency (VITEMA) to train members of the community. He is also a certified EMT to the national registry and a certified technician-class HAM radio operator.