Whether we’re giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world.
When disasters occur, your gift helps make the difference between hope and despair for neighbors all around the country.
he disasters aren’t going away.”
In Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, Kentucky and so many other places, this a common refrain heard by UMCOR staff and volunteers who help neighbors rebuild their communities after a catastrophe.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), in 2023, the United States experienced 28 separate weather or climate disasters that each resulted in at least $1 billion in damages. People who have had to abandon their homes to rising floodwaters or encroaching wildfires—and the UMCOR workers who accompany them through recovery—can attest to the tragedy such numbers capture.
The support of individuals and families allows UMCOR to leverage the power of many neighbors to follow Jesus’s call and reach our collective neighborhood with a compassionate response.
Between a major flood in August 2021 and deadly tornado in December 2021, volunteers have been busy helping nearly 3,000 individuals recover from multiple life-changing events, repairing and, in many cases, rebuilding homes and churches across the affected areas.
A rash of dangerous tornadoes ravaged the Southeast in both January and March of 2023, damaging thousands of homes across Georgia. UMCOR is continuing long-term recovery work with 95 households in three of the hardest hit counties, which are also the most under-served counties. Construction projects, including carpentry, roofing, flooring and sheetrocking, are ongoing and are strengthening the recovery of these communities as a whole.
Hurricane Ida slammed the Gulf Coast from August 28-29, 2021, causing widespread wind and rain damage to homes in Mississippi. Initial relief came in the form of ERTs who helped with clean-up, food distribution and tarping the homes of residents affected by the storm. Since then, UMCOR continues to work in five Gulf Coast counties to serve 120 households with repairs and rebuilding.
This hurricane decimated Puerto Rico on September 18, 2022, with high winds and up to 32 inches of rain in some areas. Infrastructure, homes and businesses were submerged and destroyed throughout the island. Since the beginning, UMCOR has made a multiyear commitment to survivors, helping over 1,050 households to recover through house repairs; providing household appliances, furniture, food, clothing, shelter and first aid; and offering long-term support to bolster Puerto Ricans’ financial, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Hurricane Ida raged through the greater New Jersey area on September 1, 2021, taking 30 lives and creating tremendous damage to property and infrastructure. The disaster disproportionately affected senior citizens, low-income communities and households with access and functional needs. UMCOR prioritized these survivors’ needs by focusing on the urgent rebuilding of 50 homes. Staff and volunteers remain focused on equity, supporting 200 households as they rebuild.
On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida as a category 4 hurricane, becoming the third costliest natural disaster on record. Less than two months later, Hurricane Nicole hit the peninsula, causing a devastating storm surge. Both storms left lingering damage that still impacts communities today, and UMCOR continues to serve those communities as they recover. Significant progress was made in assisting nearly 400 individuals with immediate clean-up and repairs, but the recovery continues through both complex rebuilding projects and finishing work so that families can move back into their homes.
Wind-driven wildfires on Maui caused significant loss of life and widespread damage. Lahaina United Methodist Church was among many structures lost to the August 8, 2023, wildfires that swept through the community of Lahaina. Though no one from Lahaina United Methodist died, members have friends who did. Pastor John Crewe, who leads the Lahaina church, estimated that about 75% of the church’s families have lost their homes. Among them is Rosalyn “Roz” Baker, a former Hawaii state senator who played electric piano for Lahaina United Methodist’s services. She was glad to be able to strum a borrowed ukulele in an August 20 service that Crewe led in a condominium center’s community room. “Even in all the stress, there are bright spots,” said Baker, who has found temporary lodging on the island. “It’s nice to see our congregation in particular has come together and is going to be doing whatever is necessary to rebuild.”
Everyone needs help once in a while
Bring relief and hope to survivors of natural disasters. Your generosity today means that we can respond quickly and provide immediate relief. Use the card enclosed to send a check or give online securely by visiting
Before photo courtesy of Lahaina United Methodist Church; after photo by Tiffany Winn. BEFOREIn tornado-ravaged Selma, UMCOR leverages your compassionate gifts to rebuild as efficiently as possible.
Among the crowd of relief organizations and agencies that rushed to help after 15 tornadoes tore across Alabama on January 12, 2023, killing seven people, UMCOR continues helping communities recover long term. That persistence is because of you.
“We have a track record of being really efficient with our funds,” explains Chris Ackerman, director of disaster response and recovery for the Alabama-West Florida Conference. “We’re leveraging our funds to partner with others, so instead of just helping 50 or 100 people, … we’re actually doing much more than that.”
His team has completed the recovery process for 66 households and is now addressing 124 more open cases.
“People are getting helped,” he says. “We’re making sure donors’ dollars are going to those who need it. … We want to make sure we’re honoring every cent—honoring the donors but also honoring God with what’s been given.”
In addition to making meals for community members, participating in the urgent initial debris cleanup and protecting damaged homes with tarps, the Alabama-West Florida Conference has been the only provider of case management services in the wake of this disaster. This means that they walk survivors through the arduous process of assessing needs, accessing funds and obtaining the necessary assistance—which might be anything from new furniture to a completely rebuilt home.
Often, multiple relief agencies offer this service to survivors, but in this particular situation, only UMCOR is doing this work. Ackerman puts it bluntly: “If we’re not there, these folks aren’t going to get help.”
In Selma, 80% of the population are renters, presenting different challenges than homeownership when it comes to the recovery process—as well as new opportunities to help. If they lose their homes, renters must find new properties to lease, but your gifts go towards assisting them with unexpected needs, such as a first or last month’s rent, or the replacement of furniture and other household goods. These are straightforward, tangible provisions that get people back on their feet.
For the homes that require rebuilding, these are being built to a “Fortified Gold” standard—a measure of construction stability that offers premier protection against extreme weather. Having a house built to this standard can also save owners up to 50% on homeowners insurance.
Preparing Alabama’s citizens for future storms through such creative measures is a priority. Additional tornadoes in January of 2024 have emphasized what Ackerman and responders to the 2023 tornadoes understand intimately: “We’ve had storm after storm,” says Ackerman. “I feel like we’ve been working some kind of grant since 2018. So, we’ve been looking at ways to stay sustainable.”
Your generosity allows UMCOR partners to step up to that challenge—both when those storms inevitably hit, and when their lasting effects still need to be addressed long after the initial relief efforts.
Eastern Kentucky counties use your gifts to re-establish homes and lives in the wake of deadly floods
“It looked like a war zone after the flood,” says Jim Savage, who, since the flooding has been appointed as the Eastern Kentucky regional disaster response ministry director for the Kentucky Conference. “It looked like somebody just dropped bombs all over.”
The flooding Savage is referring to devastated already economically depressed communities throughout Eastern Kentucky between July 26 and July 30, 2022, when severe thunderstorms drenched some areas with up to 11 inches of rain in two hours. In addition to claiming 45 lives, the flooding damaged close to 15,000 homes, washing some houses miles down creeks and rivers.
Since then, your contributions have allowed for UMCORtrained Emergency Response Teams, case managers and volunteers from conferences near and far to be continually present in helping families rebuild their lives in this often-overlooked corner of the country. The immediate response included the delivery of more than 4,000 hygiene and cleaning kits; shower, laundry and tool trailers for both volunteers and community members; and potable water and generators.
Outside support is welcomed in
“It takes a while to get people to understand that you’re not really an outsider,” Savage explains. “But now we’re just amazed at how many people [recognize our vehicles] and come up and wave. So I think we’re starting to do a little bit of good and people are recognizing that.”
“A little bit of good” is an understatement. Through UMCOR funding, 58 homes have been rebuilt or repaired
since March of 2023, with another 20-30 reconstruction projects planned for the coming months. Around 100 households have been helped through these repairs or through assistance with the replacement of household items such as furniture and clothing.
Teams have come from as far as New Mexico, addressing the needs of their far-flung neighbors in their darkest hour. As they work to rebuild homes, they also build relationships. As volunteers and community members work side by side, survivors repeatedly share their stories. Part of your giving goes to psychological, emotional and spiritual support, but this is another way people heal: by sharing their stories of trauma—and triumph—with volunteers who lend a compassionate listening ear.
Your gift to UMCOR prepares communities to face future extreme weather events with resilience. The Kentucky Conference is training ERTs, and districts and local churches are building response trailers and tool trailers in order to respond efficiently to future disasters.
“We know that it’s going to happen again,” explains Savage. “A couple of these counties were actually recovering from the 2021 floods when the ’22 flood hit.” A number of families that had rebuilt from those 2021 floods had to rebuild again in 2022—a situation no one wants to repeat and one that, through your compassionate response, can be avoided as communities are equipped and empowered to face the future.
Typhoon Merbok started as a weak tropical depression west of Hawaii and ramped up rapidly to slam into the western coast of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta on September 17, 2022, thrusting gale-force winds and a ten-foot storm surge at 1,200 miles of coastline and 22 mostly Native villages.
The storm hit at a particularly difficult time for those villages. With winter weather already setting in, those in Iñupiat and Yu’pik communities whose livelihoods are based largely on harvesting from the Bering Sea had completed their fishing season. But the storm destroyed food stores, equipment and fishing camps. Barges that typically bring additional goods to the area stop running in October and were already booked, making the transfer of construction materials to the region reliant on air travel. Volunteer relief teams also had to fly to the area in dicey weather, and once on the ground, they had to work through snow and frigid temperatures.
Nonetheless, an immediate recovery grant, made up of your gifts to UMCOR, delivered urgent assistance to coastal villages, including initial cleanup and home repair: clearing them of the tremendous amounts of sand the storm had blown in and making siding, window and roofing repairs. Many members of about 120 households, some of whom had been sheltering in schools and churches, were able to move back into their homes once these repairs took place.
Alaska Conference disaster response coordinator Dan Wilcox has a holistic plan for making continuing repairs
benefit not only individual homeowners but also the Native communities they belong to.
Although the assistance of volunteer teams has been critical, it has also been expensive to host teams in such a remote area. In order to honor the giving of people like you, the conference is working to employ local, Native community members to address lingering repairs. Having trained Iñupiat and Yu’pik recovery workers reduces hurdles of cost, travel and cultural understanding, allowing the conference to extend its funding across more projects and to build healthy, reciprocal relationships in native villages. As Wilcox explains, “It’s building capacity, it’s strengthening the community, and it’s making local partners that actually have an investment in the recovery for their community.”
Wilcox shares a perspective he has learned from one Native community member: “His preferred way of describing [his lifestyle] was ‘sustaining.’ He said, ‘When you talk about subsistence, it sounds like we’re just trying to hang on. But when you talk about sustaining, it’s identifying the fact that we are trying to celebrate and continue our culture, our way of life, and who we are. This isn’t just us trying to survive. This is us trying to thrive as a people.”
This is exactly why UMCOR is still in these communities assessing needs and giving special attention to individuals, households and neighborhoods that risk falling through the cracks. As always, UMCOR is working with these native communities, rather than for them, to contribute to their thriving both now and in the future.
to show God's compassionate love to those who are most vulnerable.
“All of us, at some time or other, need help. That's one of the things that connects us as neighbors—in our own way, each one of us is a giver and a receiver.”
–FRED ROGERS
In 2023, your gifts traveled the world bringing love and relief to our neighbors.
In the fourth quarter of 2023…
Ź Hurricane Otis made landfall on Oct. 25, 2023, near Acapulco, Mexico as a Category 5 hurricane. UMCOR’s response is being coordinated by the Methodist Church of Mexico.
Ź A magnitude 6.3 earthquake devastated Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2023. Our long-standing partner based in Herat provided humanitarian assistance including food, blankets, mental health and
psychosocial support and other emergency supplies through people like you.
Ź Torrential rains from Storm/Cyclone Daniel and the collapse of two dams produced catastrophic flooding in Libya on Sept. 11, 2023. Whole neighborhoods were washed into the Mediterranean Sea. Tens of thousands of people were impacted and UMCOR assisted with emergency relief.
Also in 2023, your generosity empowered UMCOR to respond with relief in…
Ź Morocco: Mobilizing emergency relief response to earthquake survivors
Ź Haiti: Cleaning supplies and nonfood items in response to flooding that displaced 13,000
Ź Guam: Early response aid to the strongest Super Typhoon to hit this U.S. Pacific territory
Ź Myanmar: Emergency relief from Cyclone Mocha on the island of Saint Martin
Ź Congo: Serving vulnerable families impacted by major flooding with relief and medical supplies
Ź Sudan and South Sudan: Refugee relief for those impacted by armed conflict and drought
Ź Côte d’Ivoire: Aid to rebuild from a violent tornado that demolished a community
Ź Turkey and Syria: Multiple initiatives to support displaced households impacted by 7.8 earthquake
Ź Africa: Emergency rations and hygiene supplies to some of the hardest hit areas impacted by Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lasting and most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded
An UMCOR partner living in Orange County, Florida, can give to a neighbor in need in Orange County, California.
Later, that partner in Florida may receive help from another partner in Orange County, North Carolina. This type of national response to help produces an exponentially positive impact during times of regional, local and neighborhood crises.
When you give to UMCOR’s disaster response outreach, you are leveraging the power of many neighbors who are reaching out in compassion to our neighborhood.
“And who is my neighbor?”
–Luke 10:29 (NRSV)
When you support UMCOR with your gift today, you are a tangible reminder of God’s
and presence in
world. Visit giveumcmission.org/neighborshelping to give securely online or send a check with the card enclosed.
