How All Hands and Hearts provides disaster relief to underserved communities

Note from the CREDO team: This December, All Hands and Hearts is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO community will will help All Hands and Hearts to provide community-inspired, volunteer-powered disaster relief and continue making commitments to disaster survivors who may not receive help elsewhere, and it would help the group build capacity, so it can deploy services efficiently.

Read this important blog post about the organization’s critical work, then click here to visit CREDODonations.com to cast your vote to help determine how we distribute our monthly grant to this organization and our other amazing grantees this December.

All Hands and Hearts provides community-inspired, volunteer-powered disaster relief. Our work has spanned 24 countries across the world and has supported recovery efforts with the help of over 63,000 volunteers. We have built schools, repaired fishing boats, constructed WASH facilities, and rebuilt homes, impacting the lives of over one million people. These households and communities have been afflicted by hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and even the terror of war. The All Hands and Hearts model allows the organization to arrive early and stay late, working alongside the community throughout the entire process. 

The accomplishments of All Hands and Hearts throughout the years are a testament to its unique Smart Response model, a volunteer-powered approach. 

So what does it mean to be volunteer powered? It means volunteers from around the world can come together with one goal in mind and get things done. All Hands and Hearts welcomes those from all walks of life into our community. Volunteers can make a difference and warm the hearts of families whose lives and homes have been torn apart. Every day new volunteers arrive, nervous and uncertain, only to walk away with their lives changed. 

Through community and volunteer engagement, we focus on helping families recover faster after disasters using our Smart Response model, which is highlighted through Response, Recovery, Resilience and Renewal. 

Response

We immediately respond to communities impacted by natural disasters by engaging volunteers, partners, and local communities to help families rebuild homes and schools.  We carry out activities such as “mucking and gutting,” “rubbling” after an earthquake, or safe demolition of dangerous structures. We begin by carefully listening to the community to identify its greatest needs, and only then, create a long-term action plan, executed with speed and real-time problem-solving.

Recovery

Where needed, we make a long-term commitment and engage our trained volunteers to work with the community to rebuild disaster-resilient homes, schools, daycare facilities and community centers – the hubs of every community. By providing a free and open door for every volunteer around the globe, (as well as cutting-edge training), we transform the good hearts and willing hands of our volunteers into a powerful team that can jump in and create an immediate impact in disaster-affected areas.

Resilience

We bring our hard-won expertise and experience to help communities put the pieces back together, rising even stronger in the face of devastation. By laying out and constructing disaster-resilient buildings to code, we ensure they are stronger and more resilient in the face of future disasters, in turn preserving the future which we are rebuilding for the community.

Renewal

We live in the communities where we serve and become a part of them. As we do, our volunteers uncover new ways to help, which invariably brings new ideas and creative solutions. Projects have included everything from weekly movie nights for kids in Malawi, English tutoring sessions in the Philippines, entrepreneurial and financial classes for secondary school girls in Peru, and Thanksgiving dinners for hundreds of flood victims in Detroit.

As a nonprofit, disaster relief organization, All Hands and Hearts effectively and efficiently addresses the immediate and long-term needs of underserved communities impacted by disasters around the world. Communicating directly with local leaders and community members, we then deploy our unique model of engaging volunteers to enable direct impact, helping to build safer, more resilient schools, homes and infrastructure. The communities we serve are not only vulnerable in terms of disasters, but also financially. By building in a disaster resilient way, we better prepare them for future events.