Coordinate relief efforts across our region of 30+ counties in SE Texas working primarily with our constituent churches in the PC(USA).
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Our mission is to provide comfort and encouragement through animal-assisted support to individuals affected by crises and disasters.
Team Rubicon is a veteran-led humanitarian organization that serves global communities before, during, and after disasters and crises.
Mission: To Make Disciples. To lead Christ-centered, Outwardly-focused, and Faith-growing communities for the sake of the world.
(We coordinate our member churches in this area for training, volunteering, food or supply distribution, donation, etc.)
Mission: BACC-DR assists in identifying the unmet needs of those affected by disasters and coordinates access to resources to aid relief. Services are provided without preference to individuals’ race, color, creed, gender, disability, or religious affiliation.
| Houston Community ToolBank is a nonprofit tool lending program that empowers fellow nonprofits to tackle community-based projects throughout our region. ToolBank borrowers are not only mainstream nonprofits, but also schools, faith-based organizations, neighborhood associations, and many others. Whether a project has ten volunteers or three hundred, access to ToolBank inventory relieves the burden of purchasing, storing, maintaining, and repairing the items essential to projects and events. When we put high-quality tools in the hands of volunteers, our members are able to do more for our community – whether through home repair, days of service, or charitable events. Since operations began, the Houston ToolBank has lent $26 million worth of tools that have equipped more than 284,000 volunteers to complete more than 23,400 projects. In a sector that consistently faces constraints of time, personnel, and budget, our inventory allows organizations to achieve their visions for a thriving community at a significantly reduced monetary cost. In the event of a disaster, the ToolBank’s Neighborhood Tool Hubs (retrofitted shipping containers at four remote locations: Conroe, Texas City, City Centre, and Fort Bend) serve as remote pickup points for critical response resources. Three-to-five days before landfall, the Hubs are stocked with generators, muck & gut supplies, debris removal supplies, and PPE. When agencies responding to the disaster reach out to the ToolBank, they are referred to the Hub closest to their location for immediate access to resources. Utilizing the Hubs makes resources available across the Greater Houston Area, which minimizes the time it takes for members to access resources and ensure accessibility in the event the ToolBank, staff homes, and/or one or more of the Hubs are inaccessible. The disaster preparedness program is intended for member agencies whose disaster response plans include extensive community clean-up and recovery support. Before hurricane season, these agencies can place a pre-order with the ToolBank for the response tools they anticipate needing for their response activities. In the event of a major hurricane, ToolBank will pull the order 3-5 days before landfall so participating members can pre-stage the resources and be ready to respond with no delay. This program decreases the time for participating members to access needed resources and helps level the ToolBank workload by moving some orders before landfall. HTB works with participating members to ensure the pre-order quantities align with their disaster response plans and don’t overstretch the ToolBank inventory. |
Mission
Mercy House Organization is an emergency safe temporary shelter & housing service that provide immediate needs such as food, blankets, and first aid to survivor victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and abuse with children and their pets.
We’ve worked with our affiliated partners to assess areas of need in Harris County(Cypress) with volunteer groups sent into places where there is immediate need during a disaster and provided assistance such as: Packs of water, Food, blankets, and other daily essentials and immediate necessities to aid those or area affected. The Need Assessment is implemented to help meet specific individual needs. We then coordinate volunteer teams throughout the areas and have standby volunteers available from other churches and non-profits as needed.
Mission
Volunteer Houston connects individuals, groups, and companies with nonprofit agencies to transform the Greater Houston community for good through volunteerism.
TO COMMUNITY LEADERS:
Volunteer Houston has an agreement with Harris County OHSEM to operate a Volunteer Reception Center (VRC) when it’s activated by county authorities in response to a disaster. A Volunteer Reception Center (VRC) is both a short and long-term solution for disaster volunteer management. It serves to connect primarily spontaneous, unaffiliated volunteers with urgent volunteer needs in response to a disaster, but it is open to all organizations and all volunteers in the Gulf Coast Region (13 counties).
However, we will always activate a virtual VRC first, whether or not it’s activated by Harris County. Volunteer Houston is the ONLY web-based volunteer portal serving the Texas Gulf Coast Region. So, why should we promote a virtual VRC? Why just one virtual VRC for the entire Houston metro area? You are probably familiar with the saying “a rising tide lifts all boats”? In this case, each of your organizations is the tide! The more we work together, the more likely we will collectively meet the needs of all those boats – i.e the disaster survivors. Consider these 3 goals:
GOAL #1 | More volunteer responses for participating agencies.
GOAL #2 | Faster and more complete response to survivors.
GOAL #3 | Less confusion and frustration for all!
Ultimately, our wish for the greater Houston area is that organizations that are open to spontaneous volunteers after a disaster use a central portal to promote their volunteer opportunities which would – in turn – justify a request to local media stations to promote a single portal for disaster volunteer opportunities for all local disasters. Every year, every disaster, same volunteer portal – www.volunteerhou.org/vrc.
This level of consistency – organizations posting their disaster volunteer needs in a single location COMBINED WITH local media stations promoting the same volunteer portal every year for every disaster – will eventually, over time, result in more organized/streamlined spontaneous volunteer management for the entire community, for local nonprofits, and for the disaster survivors.
OUR WORK
As a lead organization in both the Harris County Long-Term Recovery Committee and the Texas Gulf Coast Region VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Assisting in Disaster) Volunteer Houston has been tasked (2022) with coordinating change management for the collective use of the Crisis Cleanup (CC) platform among our fellow disaster response organizations. We are enlisting the creator of the Crisis Cleanup platform to educate us about the many necessary improvements they have made to the platform, hosting a Listening Tour with local organizations to understand their needs, concerns, and questions about the platform, and will coordinate organizations’ commitments to utilize the platform as it’s intended as our community responds to the next disaster. If the Crisis Cleanup platform is activated in Houston, Volunteer Houston takes the lead on recruiting, vetting, training and scheduling remote phone bank volunteers for the hotline.
Volunteer Houston has an agreement with Harris County OHSEM to operate a Volunteer Reception Center (VRC) when it’s activated by county authorities in response to a disaster.
We will always activate a virtual VRC first, whether or not it’s activated by the county, which serves all 13 counties in our service area. We have recruited and trained volunteers from the HC LTRC Volunteer Management workgroup to staff a physical VRC location, and we have 7 extra-extra large heavy duty storage bins filled with necessary supplies to stand a physical VRC up – office supplies, signage, communications gear, etc.
After Winter Storm Uri 2021 VH recruited, vetted, trained, and scheduled remote volunteers to staff the Crisis Cleanup hotline. Afterward, we utilized those same 50 volunteers to support Connective in following up with survivors via phone call to assist them in completing their online housing assistance application.