The EPA Conference’s Project Restoration disaster recovery service is offering an easy way for people to help survivors of Hurricane Ian, which devastated communities in Florida last week. All you need are a telephone, a computer, some free time during the week and a patient, caring heart willing to hear survivors’ concerns and connect them with the help they need.
Project Restoration will partner with Crisis Cleanup to provide phone volunteers for their web-based program to assist Hurricane Ian survivors. Volunteers are needed to take survivors’ calls on the Crisis Cleanup disaster hotline, get their information, including their FEMA project number, and enter it on the organization’s website. Volunteer organizations doing property cleanup use the website’s map to efficiently find and claim recovery cases and then arrange to do the needed work.
“We will partner with Crisis Cleanup to provide phone volunteers for their program who will receive training to assist Hurricane Ian survivors,” said Project Restoration director Denise Shelton. She will serve as our conference’s “point of contact” for Crisis Cleanup.
The hotline is open seven days a week, 9 AM to 8 PM. But “taking calls can be emotionally draining,” says Crisis Cleanup. So, new volunteers should aim to work for only 5-8 hours a week to avoid burnout.
“Interested individuals should contact me (at projectrestoration@epaumc.org) and provide me their email addresses,” said Shelton, who will email invitations to volunteers through the Crisis Cleanup website so they can set up user accounts, watch training videos and then begin answering hotline calls.