Friends,

On August 29th, five years will have passed since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf coast. I so clearly remember the early days of September 2005. HandsOn made an immediate and serious commitment to address the devastation and support Gulf relief and recovery efforts through targeted volunteer action. This decision required us to reinvent the unique “HandsOn” volunteer service model in an emergency context on short order.

Immediately following the storm, HandsOn Network mobilized thousands of volunteers to help address the needs of large influxes of displaced Gulf coast residents in cities nationwide. Hands On volunteers assisted evacuees at the Houston Astrodome, as well as facilities in Atlanta, Birmingham and other cities. They helped federal offices and first responders, staffed shelters, developed client services, and repaired homes.

In the ensuing months, HandsOn Network also launched HandsOn Gulf Coast and HandsOn New Orleans to serve the growing need created by the crisis. In 2005-2006 alone, our Gulf Coast action centers mobilized 6,100 volunteers, organized more than 76,000 unique volunteer opportunities, and generated over 700,000 hours of volunteer service. These efforts provided an estimated $13 million in economic benefits for Gulf Coast residents whose lives were devastated by the hurricanes.

Over the last five years, HandsOn Network has become deeply connected to the citizens of the Gulf region and to long-term disaster recovery work. Just today, The Huffington Post named HandsOn one of nine organizations that never left New Orleans. Now, once again, the Gulf bears the brunt of one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and I met recently in New York to strategize about ways the power of volunteerism can help the region continue to recover in the wake of the oil spill.

In June 2011, we will hold the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in New Orleans. We selected New Orleans both to assist with the city’s economic recovery and also to create a year-long, focused commitment to meet the ongoing needs of Gulf Coast residents.

Currently, 13 HandsOn Action Centers serve the oil spill-impacted states of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana. Looking ahead, HandsOn Network will partner with these local affiliates to recruit and train 10,000 volunteer leaders and mobilize 50,000 volunteers to devote an expected 1 million hours to support the region’s environmental and economic recovery. In addition, HandsOn will conduct a series of on-the-ground and virtual “boot camps” to train volunteer leaders to manage others and develop projects to meet community-specific needs, such as creating job re-training and job search clinics; restoring parks and open spaces; and assisting small businesses in operations, marketing and finance to recoup losses or improve business sustainability. To sign up and Get HandsOn for the boot camps, please visit www.handsonnetwork.org/nola2011.

We believe that engaged citizens are the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy and that effective volunteer action is a path to broader and deeper civic involvement. We believe that citizen action is vital to the ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf region.

I hope you will join me in rededicating yourselves to supporting Gulf Coast residents and families in the coming year.

In Service,

Michelle Nunn
CEO, Points of Light Institute and Co-Founder, HandsOn Network