At the end of May/beginning of June 2017, Humanist Disaster Recovery (HDR) Teams volunteers teamed up with All Hands Volunteers (AHV) to help families in Denham Springs, LA who suffered severe flooding in August of 2016. As much as 31 inches of rain fell in and around the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana. At the time, it was the worst natural disaster to hit the United States since Superstorm Sandy. 13 people lost their lives, and 8.7 billion dollars in damage was left behind.

Flooding occurred in regions that were not considered flood plains and many homeowners did not have flood insurance. The last time they had flooding even close to this was in the mid-80's. FEMA gives people about $33,000 max but the cost to rebuild a modest house averages about $75,000. We held a Humanist Disaster Recovery Drive last fall that raised more than $10,000 for our secular beneficiary AHV.

In total, HDR Teams contributed 650 hours to projects like scraping and texturing ceilings; tiling; mold remediation; hanging drywall; and taping and mudding. In total, we contributed the equivalent of about $14,750 worth of labor! Our unique contribution of both funding and volunteer efforts is helping people get back into homes they never would have been able to repair on their own.

Russell Glasser and Phil Session of the Atheist Community of Austin joined us on deployment and hosted The Atheist Experience episode 21.22 with guest HDR Coordinator Rebecca Vitsmun. They shared stories about their experiences and talked about positive Bridging the Gap moments. Watch it on their YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/1jv1dG9

Here's how you can help:

• Donate money to help fund our team deployments.
• Volunteer as part of an HDR Team! Join us.

The more funds we raise, the more teams we can deploy in different areas of need.