Lone Star Disaster Relief Fund

Your donation has provided vital support to a wide range of long-term recovery work, with a particular focus on rebuilding homes and ensuring food security to affected individuals.

Here are updates from three of the organizations supported through the Lone Star Relief Fund:

BakerRipley has assisted more than 15,000 individuals to develop tailored recovery plans and connected them with the services and resources they need to recover through their Neighborhood Restoration Centers. And over the past year, they've supported more than 16,000 individuals and households with direct financial assistance to help meet basic needs.

Food Bank Rio Grande Valley continues to help sister food banks in Houston, Victoria, Beaumont, and Corpus Christi feed families still coping with the effects of Hurricane Harvey. They've delivered more than 20 truckloads of relief supplies, including more than 2 million pounds of water and food to support tens of thousands of area residents.

All Hands and Hearts' teams in the Houston and Coastal Bend area are focusing on rebuilding area homes, and have completed 15 home rebuilds to date, with another six homes currently in progress. Their staff has also been hard at work rebuilding classrooms and wheelchair ramps at the Rhodes School in northeast Houston, a public charter school that serves 1,100 students from low-income areas across the city.

After more than one year of raising funds for Hurricane Harvey relief and recovery, the Lone Star Relief Fund is now closing. Thank you again for your generous support of the Lone Star Relief Fund, and for making the smart decision to donate cash to fund an effective, community-led approach to disaster recovery. We enjoyed sharing with you stories of progress toward a full recovery for the people of the Texas Gulf Coast.

If you'd like to continue to support long-term recovery from local organizations, you can support GlobalGiving's Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund.

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, it meant double-duty for people like Tommy, a grants manager at BakerRipley. It meant early mornings and long days for All Hands and Hearts volunteers. It meant helping neighboring communities, as was the case for staff of The Food Bank Rio Grande Valley, who continue to support sister food banks in the affected areas of Houston, Victoria, Beaumont and Corpus Christi.

Thanks to you, these local heroes had the resources they needed to respond to the most pressing needs their communities in the wake of Harvey. With your support, our partners are restoring hurricane-ravaged homes, feeding displaced families, and caring for the most vulnerable survivors of the storm.

With your support, our Hurricane Harvey relief partners are now focused on meeting long-term disaster recovery needs in the hardest-hit Houston communities. That means ensuring vulnerable storm survivors, including immigrants, the elderly, and children, have food and shelter.

While life looks like it’s back to normal in most parts of Houston, with electricity humming and doors open for business, the situation is still dire for thousands of people who our partners serve. Recovery continues nearly 11 months after Hurricane Harvey forever changed the communities and lives of families in Texas.

All Hands and Hearts’ volunteer teams in Houston and the Coastal Bend area work five days a week, leaving base at 7 a.m. every morning in order to get desperately needed work completed as soon as possible. Their teams are focusing on rebuilding homes, taking a home from the studs all the way to the installation of cabinets and light fixtures. This allows for families to return to a safe and secure place where they can begin to rebuild their lives. To date All Hands and Hearts have completed 15 home rebuilds across Texas with six homes currently in progress.

Full recovery from Hurricane Harvey by all accounts will take years, and there are many challenges to still overcome. With you by our side, the GlobalGiving community will continue to be a strong source of support for community heroes—now and for the long haul.

Links:

• Read more updates from BakerRipley
• Read more updates from Food Bank Rio Grande Valley

Thank you for your generous support of the Lone Star Disaster Relief Fund. Families have restored hope for the future because you reached out to offer a helping hand. Your donations support a number of disaster relief efforts from our partners including BakerRipley. Here's an update from Shannon Morley-Ragland, Director of Institutional Giving at BakerRipley:

On Thanksgiving morning, Monique Lampkin drafted a letter to BakerRipley’s disaster recovery team.

“Although I was impacted by Hurricane Harvey, I am so blessed,” she wrote. “I am so grateful for how you were a catalyst to help me in time of desperate need. I do not take your generosity for granted. Your care has given me so much hope for 2018.”

Monique lives in Richmond, not far from the banks of the Brazos River. When Hurricane Harvey hit, she wanted to wait out the storm, but had to evacuate to a shelter when the waters breached.

She returned home on Labor Day and, while her home didn’t sustain severe damage, the next couple of weeks threatened to pull her under. She had been working as a substitute teacher after being laid off from her job in the oil and gas industry in 2015, and she was struggling to make ends meet.

Unable to work during the week of the storm and the following days, Monique realized the gap in income could threaten to force her into foreclosure. She had already exhausted all of her personal assets, so she reached out for help.

“Harvey just pushed me over the edge. I can confidently say that without BakerRipley’s help, I would be homeless right now,” Monique said. “They went above and beyond making resources available and known to the community.”

Through our Disaster Case Management program, Monique was able to get extended assistance with her mortgage and to address water damage in her home.

“I count my blessings on a whole different level now. I wanted you to know my story and how much I appreciate it.”

Since the September closing of the shelter at NRG Center, where we welcomed more than 7,500 guests, BakerRipley has been working around the clock to help alleviate the suffering of folks affected by storm and helping them return to pre-disaster stability as quickly as possible.

As of the end of February, we had served a total of 7,825 individuals through our disaster case management services. Through our distribution of basic needs across our community centers, we handed out over 13,000 items, serving 9,801 households. Our home restoration program is currently helping more than 200 families navigate the repair and rebuild of their homes. To date, we’ve completed six homes.

We recognize rebuilding Houston is a long-term proposition and are committed to leading the charge to help this community regain stability and to ensure all our neighbors have equal opportunities to earn, learn and belong—to create the well-being and lives they desire. We can only do that with your support. Again, thank you for the impact you are making!

Links:

• Read more updates from BakerRipley

Hurricane Harvey submerged Jermaine Anderson’s home under three feet of water.

“Everything I had was obliterated,” he said from one of the last mass shelters for hurricane evacuees in Houston—a shuttered department store inside a mall. “How much more could a person lose in a single year?”

I met Jermaine last month when I visited Houston. He is one of the thousands of people struggling to rebuild their lives in Houston and the surrounding area after Hurricane Harvey.

Two months after the powerful storm made landfall, the need for basic assistance is still high, especially among Houston’s most vulnerable residents. About 85% of the storm’s victims don’t have flood insurance and hundreds of thousands have been denied FEMA assistance, or are still waiting to receive it.

Thanks to you, they have somewhere to turn.

With your donation, our local nonprofit partners are addressing gaps in services and providing a vital safety net for hurricane survivors in Houston. Because of your donation, they had the resources they needed to respond to urgent and emerging needs on the ground. These heroic first responders have been working around the clock to coordinate emergency relief operations and develop long-term recovery plans, all while juggling their pre-Harvey duties.

Here’s a look at what your donation has made possible:

Since Harvey hit, the Houston Food Bank has been operating at three times its normal capacity. Leveraging an extensive network of partners, including companies and regional hunger relief organizations, the bank set up mini-distribution sites and food delivery services in Harvey-hit neighborhoods. It also extended its hours to accommodate storm-displaced families.

“We go where we’re asked to go, and do what we’re asked to do.” That’s how Tommy Holstien describes BakerRipley, a Houston-based nonprofit that’s been around for more than 100 years. In the difficult days and hours that followed Harvey, the nonprofit set up an emergency shelter that housed more than 7,500 people over 26 days. BakerRipley is still managing a food and supply warehouse for Hurricane Harvey survivors. It’s filled with diapers, sanitary napkins, cleaning supplies, canned food, pet food, and more unused, high-demand items. BakerRipley staff told me they’re now focusing on long-term case management for storm survivors. Approximately 20,000 people are on a waitlist to receive storm-related assistance through BakerRipley.

Harvey unleashed 33 trillion gallons of water on U.S. soil, much of it dumped right over northeast Houston. For weeks, Minden Square apartments in Houston were covered in stagnant, dirty rainwater. The walls of the apartments are now stained with ugly, brown water lines—about knee-high, they’re a reminder of Harvey’s power. All Hands Volunteers are gutting the units, now infested with poisonous mold, at no cost for survivors. This is one of more than 160 home renovation projects that All Hands Volunteers have tackled in Houston since Harvey hit in August, and they have committed to helping Harvey-impacted residents in Houston rebuild over the next two years.

Because of your gift, Houstonians had a warm and safe place to sleep after the storm. Because of your gift, hundreds of families now have an apartment to call their own. They have food in their pantries and hope for the future. Recovering from Harvey will take years, and our partners are so grateful for your support.

Thank you,
Britt Lake + the GlobalGiving Team

The Lone Star Relief Fund has raised more than $39,000 in support relief and recovery efforts in Texas. Thank you for your generosity! Your donations are supporting American Homeless Families Foundation, All Hands Volunteers, BakerRipley, Direct Relief, EMPACT Northwest, Fuel Relief Fund, Houston Food Bank, and Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley to help Texans navigate the long road to recovery.

In the two months since Harvey made landfall, your donations have:

• Supplied food, water, and essentials to evacuees. The Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley has already sent six trucks full of more than 100,000 pounds of food, water, and emergency supplies to 3,000 evacuees in the Corpus Christi and Port Aransas area. You supported the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the U.S. They have been able to hire more staff and extended their hours to serve working, displaced families.
• Coordinated emergency shelter. BakerRipley worked with Harris County and the City of Houston to operation and coordination at the NRG Center Emergency Shelter, providing immediate necessities like food, water, shelter, and clothing to thousands of displaced families.
• Organized long-term volunteer help for rebuilding. All Hands Volunteers has put volunteers to work remodeling flooded homes. They've committed to two years of work in the Houston area.
• Provided fuel to power emergency vehicles, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances and Texans' cars. The Fuel Relief Fund provided fuel to thousands of people in Texas just days after Harvey made landfall. This fuel was used to power emergency vehicles, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, as well as Texans’ cars so they could leave the area. In Rockport and Port Aransas, where there were no working gas stations after the storm, Fuel Relief Fund gave away nearly 16,000 gallons of gasoline and 1,750 gallons of diesel. In Silsbee, a town severely affected by the floods, they gave away almost 3,500 gallons of gasoline and 300 gallons of diesel.

Thank you again for opening your hearts to communities affected by Hurricane Harvey.