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Disaster Recovery International Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization

Volunteerism with the Disaster Recovery International Foundation

About Volunteerism | Volunteer Day 2013 | Interested in volunteering? | Volunteerism FAQs

First I would like to thank everyone for their enthusiastic response to last year’s Volunteer Day!  Over 45 of you worked on building a home in New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity.  Tyrone and his family will be forever grateful for your hard work (and sweat – it was in the 90’s and very humid that May 19th 2012); as you helped to get his home closer to completion.  Almost 30 of you worked with Second Harvest / Feeding America sorting and boxing, what amounted to hundreds of pounds, of food and home essentials.  You all worked so fast that they needed to call a break to unload another truck.  How great is that.

Homeowner Tyrone with Clyde Berger VP and Board Director of Volunteerism DRI Foundation New Orleans, 2012

In addition to feeling good about volunteering under the DRI Foundation flag, all volunteers were allowed the opportunity to meet each other in a pre-work day evening gathering.  With last minute instructions delivered, and assignments provided, we loaded buses to our work sites on Saturday morning at the crack of dawn.  The Habitat volunteer team put in a full day measuring, cutting, framing, siding, trimming, sanding, and roofing.   The Second Harvest team put in a half day of heavy lifting, sorting (and I heard a little singing and dancing).  FYI … We like to provide our volunteers with the option of a full or half day depending on both your schedule and preference. All volunteers were provided a DRI Foundation goodie bag of great stuff (which included a volunteer T-shirt, traditional New Orleans Cajun seasoning, a Nawlins Fridge magnet, a certificate of appreciation, etc.), a traditional New Orleans Po Boy sandwich lunch, and post volunteer day dinner.  It was a fabulous day and aside from doing good work, eating good food and generally feeling wonderful about committing time to help others … we also had the incredible of opportunity to make new friends while working towards a worthy cause.

This spring, in Philadelphia, we will once again be sponsoring a volunteer day experience for our conference attendees, spouses, children, significant others, friends and the many DRI International staff who assist you throughout the year.  Our hope is to provide multiple volunteer opportunities which will once again include construction and food bank work.  Still in the planning stages, but we hope to also offer work projects with Habitat Restore (a discount warehouse of materials for local home owners) and a local community garden.  Stay tuned for details on all of these fun and meaningful assignments.  We will also provide some ‘on your own’ volunteer project ideas pre and post conference.

Keep in mind that Philadelphia is a vibrant city that has significance to the rich history of our country, great food venues, cultural opportunities galore and of course there’s always the music.

Philadelphia will be as rewarding an experience as New Orleans was last year and hopefully … then some.

As was the case last year, volunteering with us will have a dual benefit.  Not only will you feel good about what you are doing, certified professionals will also be rewarded with Continuing Education Credits!

I personally was moved, gratified and elated by the work efforts of our 75 plus volunteers last May.   Many commented to me that it was the best thing they ever did.  Other said that the friendships made were long lasting.  Still others just said it just felt so good to help out and be with people in our field who could swap BCP tales while swinging a hammer or boxing some much needed food for those in need.  This year will be as rewarding, as meaningful and as much fun.  Do think about being a part of our Volunteer Day 2013!  And thank you.

Interested in volunteering? Click here.

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Volunteerism with the Disaster Recovery International Foundation - Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why Volunteerism via the Disaster Recovery International Foundation?
A: The concept of the Foundation when first developed by Al Berman (Executive Director of DRI International) and now supported by AnneMarie Staley (Foundation Executive Chair) was to provide a vehicle for Certified Professionals to ‘give back’ to people, communities and entities in need following an outage or disaster impacting many.  What better way to do that than with the global community of certified business continuity professionals within our network?

Q:  Are these certified professionals uniquely qualified to help out?
A:  Yes, we believe that the everyday skills and experiences of our professionals makes them great resources to help out and be supportive of people, communities and organizations under duress from an outage.  Their understanding of crisis situations and their passionate belief of emergency response and business continuity practices quite clearly makes them qualified to assist.

Q:  Are any specific construction or rebuilding skills required?
A:  No, many projects will involve non construction activities and those willing to help will always have meaningful assignments provided.

Q:  Will the volunteers be working alone?
A:  No, our methodology for Volunteerism promotes a practice of partnering with local authorities, aid organizations and support groups.

Q:  Will I have guiding principles and best practices from Disaster Recovery International Foundation to help me do my work in the field?
A: Yes, an operating toolkit is being produced for that purpose.

Q: Other than the primary purpose of helping people in time of need, are there other reasons for me to get involved with the Volunteerism efforts in a specific location?
A:  Yes, DRII has agreed to award CEU’s for the work you do and the time spent helping out and ‘giving back.’  You will also have the opportunity to network with others at the volunteer sites and to learn from the Aid Organizations and local responding professionals.

Q:  How do I get more information about Volunteerism with Disaster Recovery International Foundation?
A:  You can contact Clyde Berger, Director of Volunteerism for Disaster Recovery International Foundation at cberger@driif.org

Q:  Are there any Volunteerism efforts already planned that I can get involved with?
A: Yes, there is a volunteerism project in place in conjunction with the DRI International Conference in Philadelphia in June, 2013. Two concurrent volunteer efforts are planned for in Philadelphia … Habitat for Humanity (restoring, rebuilding, or building a home in the greater Philadelphia) and Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest) (working in a food and home necessities distribution warehouse in the greater Philadelphia). Click here to get more information on these two projects.

Q:  Can I get people from my company, not necessarily certified professionals, involved in the volunteer efforts with the Disaster Recovery International Foundation?
A:  Yes, we encourage all of our certified professionals to become active and get their companies involved.  We welcome the participation of all those willing to help out.

Q:  How can I sign up to be on a list of willing volunteers?
A:  Send your name, e-mail address, Company Name, location and comments to cberger@driif.org , or click here to fill out our Volunteerism form.