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Much Appreciated
In this season of Thanksgiving,
Chatham County has much to appreciate
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Project Hope Water: Radical Hospitality
Meeting our unhoused neighbors where they are
 Chatham Savannah Authority for the Homeless (CSAH), in partnership with Chatham County, showcased their new mobile shower unit, Project Hope Water to the public this week.
The goal of the mobile shower unit is to provide access to regular, safe, clean shower facilities for people experiencing housing instability in the Chatham-Savannah community, while also connecting them with vital resources and pathways to housing opportunities. Project Hope Water seeks to be a conduit for CSAH’s theory of “radical hospitality.”
Project Hope Water is CSAH’s latest street outreach initiative. This CSAH team connects unsheltered community members to critical services. Through nonjudgmental conversations, motivational interviewing, and consistent engagements, their outreach teams build strong relationships and rapport with the goal of helping people experiencing homelessness transition from the streets to housing stability.
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Restoration
Standing by our veterans so they can stand on their own
“You get to be happy again, and you get to deserve happiness.”
Most veterans are strengthened by their service, but some struggle to engage or re-engage with civilian life. When veterans and service members grappling with substance use, mental health, or trauma become involved in the justice system, Veterans Courts ensure that they have the opportunity for treatment and restoration. Those who work with accountability courts will tell you that there’s a simple and straightforward reason for a court like this: “Because it works. And it works because incarceration does not really change behavior regarding use of alcohol and drugs. Treatment does.”
Every Veterans Court story is unique, but each participant who chooses to enter this program finds in it nothing less than brothers and sisters, new comrades in arms who are walking similarly difficult paths. The structure of the judicial system is underscored by the support and understanding of other veterans fighting this same fight to regain their lives, their dignity, and their freedom from the things that brought them there.
Michael is Veterans Court’s latest graduate, and with his permission some of his story is shared here. It's part of our ongoing series on Chatham County's Accountability Courts.
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The forecast is for clearer skies ahead for storm-stressed Georgia residents in need of recovery assistance
 After Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Helene, President Biden granted a major disaster declaration for the State of Georgia. Chatham County residents affected by either of the two catastrophic weather events are now eligible for individual assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA may be able to help residents with home repairs, temporary housing, or property damage (appliances, furniture, vehicles, etc). Residents may also qualify for help with childcare, medical, lodging, moving, and funeral expenses.
In response to the damage caused by Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Helene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has opened a Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) at Savannah Technical College. The center offers in-person assistance for residents seeking support with disaster-related needs and questions. Local state and federal resources will be available in person for residents to ask question about assistance or details about their case.
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Community Oriented Policing enables Chatham County Police Department to both serve and rely on community members for the benefit of all
 For many of us, when we walk out the door to go to work or school, family members send us off with encouraging words like “Have a great day” or “Be careful” or “Go get’em!” For every CCPD officer, the beginning of every single watch and every patrol begins with the words “Community Oriented Policing.”
It has been their watchword, their mantra, and their overarching directive since the department was stood up seven years ago. It sums up the expectation that the officers who serve the community actively look for ways to make positive, friendly contact with the members of the community in order to build real relationships. Every. Day. It is their primary directive for being a force for good in the community, for being a police force who knows what their community needs. Community Oriented Policing enables them to both serve and rely on community members effectively.
It’s also the reason CCPD internships are full every year and why officers like Captain Dean Fagerstrom will tell you with pride and gratitude, “This is who we are. This is the only thing I want to do with my life.”
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Or at least to save our oceans and landfills from filling up with things that could be recycled into something new
 “Doing things like taking these sorts of plastics out of the landfill where they can take 100s of 1000s of years to degrade and instead making them into a usable consumer product – it’s absolutely the kind of thing I wanted to be a part of.” Ally Findlay is the Activities Coordinator at Chatham County’s Recycling Center and currently working towards her Masters in Sustainability. To say she is passionate about every aspect of recycling is not stretching the truth. Recently she joined our podcast, The Chat, to talk about how and why recycling is having a big comeback, and specifically why stretchy plastics are the newest, coolest thing to recycle.
It’s “circular economy,” Ally says, “the idea that nothing has to have an end of life. Everything that is being produced, all the material that is used to make it, it doesn’t have to go into a landfill where it sits at the end of the year. So something like a plastic bag – you take the oil, you make the plastic bag, the consumer uses it, and then instead of going into the trash & ending up in a landfill where it sits for a very long time, instead you collect that material and a company like NexTrex can turn it into a new product that a consumer can then use again. And at the end of their use for that wood decking, they might send it back to someone else who’s going to use that material for something new. It’s all about how can we convert end of lifecycles into turning something into a new product. . . . For everything in general, beyond plastics! And that reduces other impacts like mining and pollution.”
Click the button below to listen to her chat about all the possibilities and all the benefits of recycling, both currently and in the future, and you’ll get excited about it too.
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Helping make Chatham County a better place to live
 Picture it: Savannah, 1733, and General Oglethorpe has set foot on Georgia's marshy coast and swatted his first 20,000 mosquitos.
Among the many reasons to be grateful that we are living in our time of history as opposed to hundreds of years ago is the fact that not only do we have air conditioning, we have mosquito control.
True, mosquitos are still thing in this area and always will be. “When you’re on the coast, the mosquito population can just get overwhelming. There’s no other way to put it, to tell you the truth.” Ture Carlson, Director of Chatham County’s Mosquito Control department, knows better than anyone. “There’s no nice way to say it. There are staggering numbers of mosquitos along the coast, from Florida up to the Carolinas, and we’re right in the middle of that.”
Mosquito season is 10 months out of the year in this part of the world, and overall there are over 44 species of mosquitos in this area, although we rarely see all of those. Chatham County Mosquito Control has existed since the middle of the last century specifically to make our lives more comfortable and our outdoor spaces more enjoyably free of buzzing and biting bugs.
And as long as they have those helicopters . . . Mosquito Control also supports law enforcement, fire suppression, search and rescue, marine patrol, and wherever aerial support is needed for any mission that the County deems acceptable. Team Chatham’s ubiquitous job description is “and other duties as needed,” and Carlson and his team are game for any of it. “Basically if you’re a county department or somebody in the county and you ask for it, we’ll try everything we can to make sure we can support that mission with the aviation.”
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Appreciating Team Chatham's Vets on Veterans Day and Every Day
 348 men and women who have served or who still serve in the United States military also currently serve Team Chatham -- and thereby serve the residents of Chatham County. We are better for the skills and experiences they have acquired in the service of our country, and we are better for the level of commitment, camaraderie, and capability that is so often recognized as the hallmark of military service.
Every Veterans Day, Chatham County Government honors all US veterans and particularly the Team Chatham members who are veterans and who know what it is to serve their country as well as their county. With patriotic music and military pageantry from our community, with stories shared by our veterans, and above all with great respect and deep appreciation from all, our Veterans Day celebration is an annual favorite for Team Chatham. You can enjoy the entire program HERE.
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Chatham County Parks & Recreation and Live Oak Public Libraries are off on a new adventure together
 Chatham County Parks & Recreation and Live Oak Libraries kicked off an innovative partnership to bring our community a new type of outdoor experience that combines reading and physical activity. The Library’s new StoryWalk® installations at Chatham County’s Tom Triplett and Lake Mayer Parks invite children and families to enjoy a story as they stroll through the parks.
The currently featured StoryWalk® title at Tom Triplett Park is Snow In The Jungle/Nieve En La Jungla by Ariane Hofmann-Maniyar. Lake Mayer’s currently featured StoryWalk® title is Big Dance by Aoife Greenham. New stories will be added each season at both parks!
Learn more about Live Oak Public Libraries HERE.
 
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Join Team Chatham!
Chatham County Human Resources is looking for you!
Attorneys and activities instructors... engineers and electricians... managers and mechanics... detectives and dump truck drivers . . . clerks, call-takers, and carpenters. Chatham County Government serves in so many ways, and it takes all sorts of skillsets to make it happen. Whatever your experience, whatever your goals, Team Chatham may have just the right fit for you! Check out this week's jobs listings and check for new listings every Thursday.
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