With the backing of a local nonprofit, Naperville women who made it their mission to help their neighbors recover from the 2021 EF-3 tornado will try to raise $1.5 million in the next five months to clean up yards that still are filled with debris left by the storm.
In the days after the June 20, 2021, tornado, a group of moms known as Ranch View Area Community Assistance created a Facebook page to cut through the red tape and connect neighbors who needed help with those who wanted to volunteer.
Now the group is looking to fill the gaps not covered by insurance by offering grants that assist homeowners in the environmental cleanup of their yards of the wood, metal and glass shards embedded by the tornado.
At a September City Council meeting, group co-founder Kristy Kennedy asked for help finding a nonprofit partner so they could go after grant money and so donors know the group is acting responsibly with the money they’ve collected for Naperville residents.
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Shortly after her appeal, Kennedy was connected to the Naperville-based M.P. Foundation, a nonprofit whose goal is to help empower parents, teachers and community leaders to help make a positive difference in the lives of children.
Established by Asuttosh Rajkumar and his mother Selvei Rajkumar, the foundation was named in honor of Asuttosh’s two great-grandfathers, Muthusami Gounder and Paravel Gounder.
Naperville resident Selvei Rajkumar, who with her husband owns early childhood KLA Schools in Naperville and Plainfield, said she watched Kennedy’s appeal at the meeting and called Mayor Steve Chirico to ask if she might be the right fit.
“They couldn’t find a nonprofit that could help them; I wanted to help,” said Rajkumar, who sees her role as a facilitator with some expertise in website design.
“I’m really happy to see Kristy and other volunteers spending their own time to help residents who need to help,” she said.
The newly renamed Naperville Tornado Relief and its website allows people to donate money or services and learn about where the money will go.
Kennedy said the goal is to raise $1.5 million through March to assist Naperville residents on yard improvement projects next summer. She said the hope is to be wrapped up by this time next year.
Several events already are in the works, including a “quarters for a cause” drive hosted by Ranch View Elementary School Student Council.
Kennedy said the Naperville Central High School Rowdies also are planning to raise money at an upcoming crosstown sporting event against Naperville North.
More importantly, Kennedy said because of the partnership with the M.P. Foundation, Naperville Tornado Relief can submit for grant applications, which the Naperville Junior Woman’s Club has offered assistance in writing.
A top priority for the money raised, Kennedy said, will be replacing yards for the 31 families whose homes were declared uninhabitable or their direct neighbors whose yards became blanketed by debris.
Residents say their yards were filled with dangerous materials, and they can’t let their children or pets use them without fear of injury.
While they go through and pick up debris, whenever it rains more hazardous materials rise to the surface.
Kennedy said because there’s no way to fully clear a yard of dangerous scraps without sieving the topsoil, the plan is to remove and dispose of the top two inches of contaminated soil and replace it with clean soil.
Depending on the cost, she said yards would be sodded or grass seed would be applied.
Up to 70 homes could be available for yard replacement money, Kennedy added.
Other funding would be available to replace landscaping, such as bushes, trees and other plants, lost in the disaster that were not covered by insurance.
A final initiative, Kennedy said, is aimed at residents living at the edge of the destruction area who perhaps only lost a couple trees or experienced a touch of damage that isn’t worth filing an insurance claim.
Beautification money would be available to boost happiness, she said, because those residents still lived through the worst of the destruction and the aftermath recovery.