After last year’s flooding, more than one of our regular volunteers said the same thing afterward: everyone wanted to help, but nobody knew who to call, what to bring, or where to actually go. We spent the following months building something to fix that.
The new Emergency Support Crew is a standing group of trained volunteers who’ve opted in to be contacted the moment local authorities flag an emergency — whether that’s a flood, a heatwave welfare check, or a smaller local incident that still needs extra hands fast. When a callout goes live, an SMS blast goes out to every crew member simultaneously, so we’re not relying on someone remembering to forward a text chain at 6am.
Thirty-two volunteers have already completed the first training session, covering basic first aid, safe sandbagging, and how to work alongside professional emergency services rather than in their way. If you want to be one of the people who gets that text, sign-ups are open now.