Needed: Volunteers for Harvey projects
Two nonprofits with 4,000 workers seek aid to rebuild homes
More than 4,000 volunteers will arrive next week ready to hang drywall and install kitchen cabinets, lay down carpet and replace insulation.
Six months after Hurricane Harvey put the Houston area underwater, a Mississippibased nonprofit will bring in people from 45 states and a handful of other countries. They’ll help repair and rebuild homes in Galveston County and parts of southeast Harris County— and they want local volunteers to join them.
“The need is huge,” said Stephen Tybor. Tybor is president of the faith-based group Eight Days of Hope, which will join forces with the local 4B Disaster Response Network, a network of Houston-area churches helping families displaced by Harvey.
For 15 days — March 10-24 — volunteers will fan out to work on hundreds of houses with flood damage. Out-of-towners will be lodged at local churches and fed three times a day. Locals will agree to show up and pitch in at least three times.
The plan is to repair about 700 homes, said Ben Baldwin, 4B’s executive director.
“Some will be completely rebuilt,” Baldwin said. “Others, we may just help in a significant way (to) help families take a few steps forward.”
The name of Baldwin’s group, 4B, was inspired by the area it covers, a zone that stretches from the southeast corner of Beltway 8 down to Galveston Beach and from the Brazoria County line east to Galveston Bay. About half of the homes on the fixit list are in Dickinson, where Harvey flooded more than 7,000 residences.
Another group is looking for volunteers to help rebuild 100 homes just to the west, in Brazoria County. Team Rubicon, a global disaster response group led by military veterans, is particularly seeking volunteers who have a military background or construction skills, but anyone who is willing to give a day or two to help is welcome, organizers said.
The eight-year-old nonprofit is made up of 70 veterans and first responders, Anita J. Foster,
“We’re told to love our neighbors, so that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Ben Baldwin, 4B Disaster Response Network
a Team Rubicon spokeswoman said in a release. Training for new volunteer leaders runs through March 26.
“Team Rubicon understands that rebuilding 100 homes might seem like a drop in the bucket against the enormous need but believes it will be meaningful to the 100 low-tomoderate income families that will receive assistance,” Foster said.
The Eight Days of Hope project is an example of faith in action, Baldwin said.
“For us, it’s a moral imperative to care for our neighbors,” he said. “We’re told to love our neighbors, so that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Even six months after the storm, too many people are still displaced, he said, or they’re living in gutted-out homes, struggling to fix drywall and other damage as they can.
“We can see from previous disasters: No matter how hard the federal government tries, and the state government, they can only help a small percentage of people,” Baldwin said. “And it takes them a long time sometimes.”
Eight Days of Hope, which specializes in large-scale disaster recovery, sent huge teams of volunteers to Lafayette, La., after a flood in 2016; to Tupelo, Miss., after a tornado in 2014; and to North Caroline after Hurricane Irene in 2012.
Its very first mission was just after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Tybor said, when he and his father decided to help with recovery.
“He called me and said, ‘Let’s grab a couple of buddies, go down do the Gulf Coast and help somebody,’” Tybor recalled. It was just going to be the two of them, but then they each told some friends who wanted to join in, and before they knew it, “it ended up being 684 people.”
Tybor swiftly turned this eager group of helpers into a nonprofit and called it Eight Days of Hope. His organization visits disaster sites after floods, tornadoes or hurricanes.
Eight Days of Hope’s rapid response team descended on the Houston area within 72 hours of Hurricane Harvey, Tybor said. A revolving crew of 2,000 volunteers spent seven weeks mucking out houses and cleaning up debris.
Now it’s time for the disaster recovery team to help out. Harvey’s destruction is so extensive, this will be the group’s biggest volunteer effort, the group said.
The 4B group, meanwhile, formed just after Harvey. Several churches decided to work together so they could maximize their recovery efforts. They formed a nonprofit group and Baldwin, a retired Army officer, was brought on board to help with logistics and organizing.
The rebuilding project is funded by grants from large foundations. The Rebuilding Texas fund, started by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and the OneStar Foundation, contributed $860,000, an amount that was matched by the Galveston-based Moody Foundation.
A lot of the incoming volunteers won’t be picking up tools for the first time. Eight Days of Hope networks with businesses and nonprofits to recruit volunteers with real skills: contractors, builders, remodelers, electricians, plumbers and HVAC technicians.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for volunteers who don’t have those skills. Kids are welcome, seniors are welcome, Tybor said. The oldest Eight Days volunteer he knows of is 93.
“We’ve never turned away one volunteer,” Tybor said. “There is so much to be done.”
Volunteers are needed to prepare meals, deliver materials to job sites, clean shower trailers, hand out tools, pick up volunteers at the airport and more.
“Do we like the professional? Absolutely,” Tybor said. “But we equally like the family that shows up and wants to serve together.”
Volunteers commit to three days of work; the days don’t have to be consecutive. Volunteers have until Sunday to register on the 4B website.
And if people with flooddamaged homes missed their chance to apply for aid this time around, there will be more chances in the future: 4B plans to partner with other groups to stage large-scale rebuild efforts in the area, Baldwin said.
“As long as there’s a need, we’re going to be rebuilding homes.”