The largest private employer in the region, Premier Health, as of last week identified roughly 350 employees in the system affected by the Memorial Day tornadoes, many of whom were displaced from their homes.
“It’s really making sure we take are of them, so they can take care of our patients,” said Jenny Lewis, president and CEO of the Miami Valley Hospital Foundation.
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About half of those employees – about 171 – reached out for assistance from the system’s foundations, which maintain an Employee Catastrophic Fund for emergency assistance.
More than $100,000 has been donated to the Premier Health foundations’ Employee Catastrophic Fund by employees, board members, and others, including a $10,000 donation by the MD Anderson’s Physicians Network. The health system employs roughly 12,200 employees.
Through the Employee Catastrophic Fund, employees can get up to $1,000 in assistance and also employees received $150 gift cards for food for immediate relief when they reached out for help. Affected employees could have also gotten two weeks of pay without having to use their time off bank.
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Tim Dutton, Kettering Health Network chief human resource officer, said his health network is still getting a sense of which employees are affected, but know as of this week of about 150 employees affected in some way.
The health network is taking applications from staff for assistance and looking at the best way to help. That includes paid time off but also cash assistance for anything from gift cards for food to cash for making payments. Dutton said so far that adds up to close to $100,000.
“That’s not a final number by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just where we are at the moment as we have taken in applications from staff,” Dutton said.
The school board for Trotwood-Madison City Schools, which employs about 400, voted to allow up to five days off for employees who were impacted by the tornado.
The school district is still working on a count but knows there are impacted employees, said Janice Allen, school district treasurer and chief financial officer.
Besides the days off, Allen said that employees in the school district have been trying to find whatever way they can to support their impacted co-workers. Allen said she’s been trying to help an employee who works for her stay positive and take one step at a time.
“You’ve got to keep supporting your employees and being their cheerleader so they can continue on. Because it’s a very, very difficult situation that she’s in,” Allen said.
While Dayton Children’s Hospital was gathering donations for the community, the hospital also opened up a campaign for its employee care fund and employees donated about $62,000 this year, which is $16,000 more than they did last year, said Stacy Porter, Dayton Children’s spokeswoman. Employees have also been donating paid-time off to other employees.
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About 24 hospital employees impacted by the tornado have applied for assistance from the hospital’s employee care fund that it maintains to help out it’s staff in case of catastrophic circumstances.
“You don’t give good patient care if you aren’t taken care of,” Porter said.
As large employers, they also have the means to help those outside of the company. All of the employers that talked to the Dayton Daily News said they were volunteering outside of the school district
Montgomery County, with about 4,300 employees, had its human resources team provided guidance to managers and supervisors to reach out to employees and see if they were impacted by the natural disaster.
Departments with affected employees took up collections of food, clothing, gift cards, personal items, and more to help individuals with specific needs in their work groups.
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They let employees take time off and borrow against future accrued vacation time, found temporary housing for anyone who needed it through the University of Dayton, made mental support available and offered personal leaves of absence as needed.
“We had employees who were devastated, who lost their homes and almost all their possessions. Others had damage to their property or vehicles, or their family members may have suffered significant losses,” Debbie Lieberman, Montgomery County commission president, said. “Many of these unsung heroes came to work the morning after the tornadoes struck, because they knew the community needed them.”
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