Hoisted by a Four-Star rating from Family Central, Inc., NOAH’s Building Blocks Family Development Center has earned its “excellence” status, but agency leaders maintain a laser-like focus on reaching higher.

“We are going for the gold,” said Board Member Dorothy Gilbert, one of the founders of NOAH.

Building Blocks is pursuing the top rating from a Children's Services Council/United Way certification program for nonprofit organizations. NOAH completed the first step in a 3- to 5-step process when it became one of 71 agencies to meet a March 31 self-assessment. The next step includes an on-site review of its administrative operations by the Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

Once completed, a report on NOAH’s status will be generated. If it does not meet standards, step 4 will include development of an improvement plan. Once the plan is completed, Step 5 will include another on-site review and a final report, which will determine that NOAH has met certification standards for sound nonprofit management (the bronze level), Best Practices (silver level) or Excellence in Nonprofit Management (gold level).

There is “absolutely” no pursuit of anything less than the Gold level for Building Blocks, said Gilbert, a retired school teacher. For her, being good is not enough. She wants greatness. And she knows a little something about being great. She recently was named a Great Women of the 21st Century and had her biography published by the American Biographical Institute.

She expresses her intent in direct sentences, much like an athlete training for gold.

“We want to be tops,” she said. “We want to be very outstanding. Our goal is to be tops in the program altogether.”

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$500,000 IN HELP ON THE WAY, BUT FARM WORKERS MUST WAIT ON AMARYLLIS REPAIRS
A gardener knows that once an amaryllis has stopped flowering, a series of steps in a months-long process can make it bloom again. That is where NOAH finds itself in its effort to rebuild 14 of 44 units in the apartment complex named for the botanical beauty.

The United States Department of Agriculture is set to send $500,000 to NOAH for rehabilitation of the Amaryllis Gardens apartments that were damaged during Hurricane Wilma, but the rebuilding process is being drawn out. It will be a while before the displaced farm workers who lived there can move back in.

“We just received notification from the USDA and we submitted all of the papers to them on April 21,” said Thomas Roberts, Executive Director of NOAH. “They have to come in and do a capital needs analysis, and we contracted with a firm in St. Louis to do that because we had to get a USDA approved firm. They are doing a lot of Katrina-related work in the Gulf, so it’s going to take some time. We’ll be well into the next hurricane season.”

The Amaryllis apartments suffered the most hurricane damage of any other property operated under NOAH’s wing.

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“Monica had previous experience working with children,” said Matilda Edwards, Director of Early Childhood Education. “She is a nurturer and she enjoys working with infants and toddlers. She was hired to work with the toddlers.” Monica previously worked as a sub in a home day care setting.

“Ternesha also comes to us with previous experience working in child care. She’s currently working with our (three-year-olds and four-year-olds),” Edwards said.

Building Blocks has eight teachers with a lead teacher and an assistant teacher in
each setting. But Edwards said there is still room for more talented individuals who want to help cultivate the development of young hearts and minds.

“There are a couple of positions we are looking to fill,” Edwards said. “We provide services to English, Spanish and Creole-speaking children. It has been difficult to find a Hispanic-speaking teacher.”

“I have young mothers who call, and they're almost in tears,” Kinsler said. But when the $1.2 million grant from the Housing Finance Authority of Palm Beach County ran out in late April, there wasn't much more NOAH could do.

For the 100 plus families NOAH did help, they will have their rent paid in full for a year while they get back on their feet. They were placed in homes throughout the Glades, “anywhere that was decent and sanitary,” Kinsler said. Some also were provided jobs in hurricane-related cleanup.

For those who still need help, uncertainty in a desperate housing shortage creates its own whirlwind as a new hurricane season approaches.

• SUMMER LUNCH AND BREAKFAST PROGRAM RETURNS TO NOAH:
School is out at the end of May, but for the fourth consecutive year NOAH will be there to provide help for working parents by serving as home base for summer breakfast and lunch programs.

The program starts in early June and will continue until a week before the 2006-2007 school year begins.

About 75 to 100 children 17 and under will be fed each day at the Covenant Villas complex in Belle Glade and another group of about 50 will be fed at NOAH’s South Bay complex, according to George Kinsler, Director of Residential Housing Services for NOAH.

The meal program is operated and paid for by the state and distributed through churches and nonprofit organizations. The meals arrive at NOAH daily, already prepared. A local church handles the storing, preparing and delivery.