Council on Aging of Buncombe County Inc

“The interim executive director reviewed the return before filing the 990. All members of the governing board are provided a copy of the of the 990 for their individual review.”

“A written policy is maintained by the council and annual reporting is required by all staff and board members. All employees and board members must sign the policy and commit to compliance with it.”

“This process is approved by the board of directors.”

“UPON REQUEST”

“During fy 2024, the organization's executive director leadership consisted”

“Volunteers assist in the senior dining program, provide counseling regarding medicare, provide rides for seniors and homebound food delivery. Volunteers assist at fundraising events and with special projects.”

“Resource coordination medicare/benefits enrollment center in 2024, staff and volunteers present and attended 36 community outreach events including group seminars, health fairs, community picnics and other events. Attendees included target groups such as low income, rural, disabled, formerly incarcerated, and black and hispanic communities. Staff and volunteers provided approximately 2,700 contacts in buncombe and henderson counties and reached more than 1m people via online, television, and newspaper ads. During open enrollment from 10/15/2023-12/07/2023, over 550 clients received direct counseling, for over 1m in premium savings. Medicare staff partnered with the coabc senior dining services manager to host a shred-a-thon event in connection with a senior dining annual picnic. In the two-hour event, approximately 2,700 pounds of paper was shredded. Our benefits enrollment program helped seniors find other services such as food (snap), medication, and other discount programs. This grant was not renewed after december 31st, 2023, as the national council on aging shifted focus to other areas. Staff and volunteers have stepped up to fill in the information gaps that the bec program would have otherwise provided. Unfortunately, the medicare center was closed in january 2024. The loss of the bec program housed in this facility and the overall cost of operations proved greater than funding would support. Affordable care act coabc continued its successful regional leadership of the affordable care act navigation program. The coabc team included two full-time and one part-time bilingual navigators along with the program director serving nine western north carolina counties. The program continues to grow, with almost 300 more clients helped and 150 more appointments offered, reflecting a 6% increase in enrollments. An average of 23% of aca clients are first-time enrollees. We increased our outreach events again this past year. Coabc navigators continue to work in partnership with mcdowell access to care and health (match) and toe river project access (trpa) in avery, yancey, and mitchell counties. These program are both part of carereach, a partner and subgrantee that we have worked closely with for years. In addition to aca navigation, we assisted clients with enrolling in primary care, specialty care, and - when necessary - financial assistance. Our navigators worked with the premium and copayment assistance program (pcap), a part of the north carolina hiv medication assistance program (hmap) to help enrollees across the state find the right aca insurance plan.”

“Community services - care management community services staff assist buncombe county residents with understanding and accessing a variety of services throughout the community. Our staff connect online, over the phone, and in-person via coabc offices or outreach events. We helped clients access 97,123 in caregiver respite funds in buncombe and madison counties, answered over 8,298 information and assistance calls, completed 32 minor home repair projects, and provided heat relief in the form of box fans to clients. We delivered over 11,850 pounds of food to homebound clients and our volunteers provided transportation for more than 120 client appointments.”

“Other accomplishments: our organization continues to make great strides to increase private support as well as enhance our infrastructure to expand services, innovate programming outside of traditional government grants, and collaborate with grassrootsorganizations and other nonprofits. We continue to "stand in the gap" of services for older adults in our service area. We continue to be a living wage certified employer through justeconomics and further our efforts for program evaluation, iversity/equity/inclusion/accessibility, a "hub and spoke" model of service, and integrating in cross-sector partnerships that include clinical settings. We completed our recovery from a ransomware incident in fy22 and successfully regained access to our information, began rebuilding our it environment and developed a relationship with epsilon, inc. For staff training, dark web screening, and enhanced security monitoring as well as adding cloud storageand additional network support for the organization. This has caused our it technology expenses to increase as shown on the functional expenses in fy2023.”

“Food preparation services 184,627 0 0 care services / other 205,322 0 0 total 389,949 0 0”