Submitted photo President Phillips Kolsun, left, and the Rotary Club of Elkins welcomed Cindy Jividen, Charlotte Green and Jennifer Parr from North Central West Virginia Community Action. with Bruce Kolsun, right, president of the NCWVCAA Board of Directors.

ELKINS — Members of the North Central West Virginia Community Action staff recently addressed the Rotary Club of Elkins. NCWVCA was incorporated in 1966 and has, since that time, served as a voice and supporter of financially challenged West Virginians and strives to give those citizens unique opportunities to empower themselves. The organization provides services in their 9-county core service area – Barbour, Greenbrier, Marion, Monongalia, Pocahontas, Preston, Randolph, Taylor and Tucker. The Head Start Program also provides services in Webster County. The Weatherization Program covers Harrison, Lewis and Upshur counties as well.

Community Services Director Jennifer Benedum Parr gave the group an overview of the many services provided by NCWVCAA, a private non-profit corporation that is governed by a 15-member board of directors. The organization is committed to reducing poverty, empowering individuals, families and communities and helping residents adapt to current challenges and future changes.

According to Parr, there are sixteen community action agencies that cover all of West Virginia. NCWVCAA is one of the two largest agencies in the number of counties served and the largest in terms of service area. NCWVCAA’s corporate office is in Fairmont with satellite offices located in each of the counties in the core service area. “Our main purpose is to help low-income families get the services that they need. We try to bring them out of poverty and into self-sufficiency. We want to help them achieve social and economic independence and so they don’t need to come back to us always seeking financial support,” said Parr. “We try to discover the barriers they’re having and help to overcome those barriers.”

NCWVCAA offers several services and programs. The Emergency Assistance program helps with utility shut offs and terminations, provides food vouchers for emergency needs and makes referrals to other community resources and partners. Employment Stabilization & Case Management focuses on overcoming the barriers that prevent residents from finding and maintaining the employment necessary to support their household while providing personalized support with wraparound services as well.

Community Services Program Manager Charlotte Green oversees the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program that operates two branches: prevention and rapid rehousing. The goal of these veteran services is to improve the housing stability for low-income veteran families. “There’s a lot of intense case management involved because each situation is different for every veteran,” said Green. Examples cited by Green included a veteran who may be housed but is being evicted due to being behind on rent because of job loss or a veteran who is truly homeless and living in a park. Preventive services can include helping keep a veteran housed so that they do not become homeless by paying past rent or utilities in the short term or by helping veterans who are facing foreclosure on their homes find alternative housing options. “But first, we really try to keep them in the housing they are in,” said Green.

“Sometimes we do not hear from the veteran until they are already on the street or they are living in a shelter or they are staying with a family member who is ready to kick them out,” said Green. For that need, there is also a Rapid Rehousing Program within the SSVF program that assists veterans who are truly homeless and living on the streets or have no other place to go and nobody willing to help them. “We try to figure out a good match for them for housing first then we look at employment and beyond. We see what their education has been like and what referrals we can make for education because there are places that can help those veterans get a job,” commented Green. “We work closely with the VA. We try to get them linked to as many as services as possible.”

VITA & EITC provide free income tax preparation for low-to-moderate income individuals and families during tax season and helps individuals to secure the Earned Income Tax Credit as well as Child Tax Credit eligibility. “The cap for this coming year will be a household income of $68,000,” commented Parr.

Various seasonal programs include a garden program operated in the spring that provides vouchers to purchase vegetables for planting and sometimes canning supplies as well. The organization also operates the Forgotten Angel program during the Christmas holidays. Forgotten Angel program is open now and provides Christmas gifts to children who are unable to receive assistance from other holiday programs. “The Forgotten Angel program is a true donation program; we don’t use any agency funds for that. We count on our communities, our clubs, our groups through the counties to receive donations of toys. We also partner with the Dream Tree [operated by the Greenbrier Resort] for gift donations,” said Parr.

There is a summer food program that provides snack options through various outlets including low-income housing complex locations, churches or YMCAs that offer summer programming to school-aged children. “Unfortunately, there are a lot of households, a lot of families, a lot of children who do not have food support after school lets out for the summer,” said Parr.

The Homelessness Recovery and Prevention program is supported by grants. “We have to apply and compete for this money. We have to show that our services are important, what we’re doing is important and that our community needs these services,” said Parr. The association operates two homeless shelters, one in Fairmont and the other on S. Davis Avenue in Elkins. These shelters offer safe, sanitary conditions for the residents, and provide case management services that are geared toward getting the individuals out of the homeless situation and into stable housing. Health services as well as job training, education and stability planning are also offered.

Cindy Jividen, Homeless Services Program Manager, added that homelessness is becoming a more extensive problem in not just Elkins but in many communities. The Elkins Homeless Shelter, located on S. Davis Avenue, only has capacity for 13 individuals. There is one family unit with four beds, four individual rooms for men, four individual rooms for women and one handicapped accessible unit. “Right now, we have nine individuals. With the sudden weather change we are starting to get additional requests,” said Jividen.

The funding for the shelters comes from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through an Emergency Solutions Grant, WV Department of Human Services (DoHS) and Tygart Valley United Way. The funds provide operational money for staffing and general shelter operations as well as the Rapid Rehousing Program that can assist homeless individuals and families with first-month rents, security deposits and utility deposits and utility arrearages to help settle debts to open up new utility services.

NCWVCAA also operates the following programs: Head Start (3- to 5-year-olds) and Early Head Start (birth to 3 years old) programs focusing on early childhood development; a Weatherization Program that looks to help reduce heating and cooling costs for low-income households; and Affordable Housing which provides safe, clean affordable homes for low-income families recognizing that housing is a critical step in family stability. One key component to NCWVCAA services is the Community Needs Assessment process and hearing the voices of the communities and determining what services are needed for the low-income population. “We do an all-inclusive assessment every three to five years, and we do updates every year in between,” said Parr. “We want you to be a part of this.”

“We are in this business because we love helping people, that’s why we’re here. We have a lot of longevity in our services and staff. I’ve been with Community Action for 21 years now. Charlotte has been here 10 years and Cindy has been with the agency 46 years. We have staff who truly care and want to help those in need,” concluded Parr. “Community Action is Helping People, Changing Lives.”

More information about North Central West Virginia Community Action, including programs that may provide needed assistance, can be found at the organization’s website, https://ncwvcaacorp.net/ or by calling the corporate office (Fairmont) at 304-363-2170 or the Randolph County office at 304-636-5008.

Rotary is a global network of 1.4 million neighbors, friends, leaders and problem-solvers who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change — across the globe, in their communities, and in themselves.

Visit www.Rotary.org to learn more about Rotary International, visit the club’s Facebook page – Rotary Club of Elkins – or contact 2025-2026 club president Phillips Kolsun at phillipskolsun@gmail.com for more information about the Rotary Club of Elkins.