THE Department of Community and Cultural Affairs-Division of Youth Services on Friday “smoothly” distributed pandemic emergency assistance checks to 688 qualified families on Saipan, Tinian and Rota.
Each check was for $700.
“It was a very smooth operation because we set up a drive-thru that can serve multiple recipients in their cars at one time,” said DYS Administrator Vivian Sablan who also assisted in distributing the checks.
“The families don’t have to get out of their cars. They just have to show their IDs, and the average wait time was just two minutes,” she added.
Jen Ambas, a salesclerk, was one of the 536 household heads who received a check at the Kagman Community Center. She said she was furloughed and has four children to feed. “I am very happy. This is a very big help to my family. I am very grateful,” she said.
On the same day, DYS distributed checks to 80 families on Tinian at the DYS Tinian Office and 72 families on Rota at the Sinapalo Youth Center.
Sablan said the one-time emergency assistance was funded by the American Rescue Plan Act. They announced it late in April and closed the application in the second week of May.
She said about 1,000 applied for assistance but, aside from eligibility, they also had to process the applications based on the amount of ARPA money they received from the grantor, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
She said when they met the number of eligible applicants for the amount of funding they had to stop processing the other applications.
It is their hope, however, that the grantor can provide the CNMI with extra funding, “because you know, the need is there,” Sablan said.
When DYS applied for funding with HHS, there was a portion in the application form that stated, “Do you want to re-apply in case there is extra funding from other jurisdictions that is left over?”
Sablan said DYS marked the corresponding box in the application form.
She said they were told that if other jurisdictions fail to spend the total amount of money granted to them, the leftover funds can be provided to jurisdictions that still need more.
“Today, we are depleting the funds. So it will show the grantor that the CNMI still needs assistance and we are crossing our fingers that some other jurisdictions will have leftover funds,” she said.
Division of Youth Services’ Josephine Kapileo and Alex Olopai speak to a recipient of pandemic emergency assistance at the Kagman Community Center on Friday.
