Helping Our Community Recover

As I write this more than a week after Hurricane Beryl, thousands of our neighbors are still without power, and internet/cell service is spotty. While the storm was still moving through our area, Easter Seals of Greater Houston was coming together as a staff and community to help ensure that some of our most vulnerable neighbors were safe. We have learned the hard way how to be good at this! We learned through assisting evacuees from Hurricane Katrina and through helping almost 12,000 impacted by Hurricane Harvey that after immediate help (financial, connection to community resources, ensuring a safe place to live), the critical services to provide to help people move back toward stability are case management, financial coaching and mental health services. I am so proud of our staff who immediately started providing case management and connection to resources. Because the majority of the families we serve live below the poverty line, just losing the food in their refrigerator or medications, not being able to work because businesses were closed or having damage to their home or vehicle can throw their family into crisis. Know that we are addressing our clients’ needs as fast as we can, knowing after immediate assistance comes long-term recovery.

Through a remarkably agile and responsive model, the Greater Houston Disaster Alliance was able to complete due diligence and get funding to local non-profits to address the needs of low-income families impacted by the Derecho. As one of those agencies, we were able to help 65 families with emergency assistance to replenish food, medications, gas and lost income and do minor home repairs. Thank you to The Greater Houston Disaster Alliance, United Way of Greater Houston and Greater Houston Community Foundation for allowing us to respond so quickly!

I also want to thank the Bob Woodruff Foundation (BWF) and Craig Newmark of Craig Newmark Philanthropies for leading our fundraising efforts through their direct emergency assistance, making a gift before our power was even back on after Hurricane Beryl. We are honored to be a long term partner in BWF’s work to ensure that our nation’s veterans, service members and their families have stable and successful futures, and we are so very appreciative of the Hurricane Beryl support through BWF's Natural Disaster Fund that enables us to provide emergency assistance to our Veterans and their families, like "A" and his family.

I hope you will consider being part of the recovery process – whether that is through a financial donation to Easter Seals or another local non-profit, volunteering or keeping our community in your thoughts as we begin recovering from these storms. I am, as always, so grateful for the United Way’s critically needed leadership and proud to be a part of the amazing work of Easter Seals, of our second to none staff and of the donors and volunteers who make our work possible.