By Kerry Fugett, 10/16/17
The devastation that hit Sonoma County residents, students, small business owners, workers and our environment during the recent wild fires has been enormous. With well over 7,000 structures destroyed, our community has had to come together like never before.
As a leader in grassroots mobilization, Sonoma County Conservation Action stepped in on day one to help our community stay informed, work together and develop a platform for long term relief coordination.
To do this, we helped launch the SonomaCounty.Recovers.org website.
What is SonomaCounty.Recovers.org?
SonomaCounty.Recovers.org is a locally-managed bilingual website that works with local organizations, government and volunteers to help fire victims meet their individual needs without delay.
By leveraging the national Recovers.org community-powered disaster relief platform, we were able to start pulling together thousands of volunteers and donations in a matter of days, matching them to real-time needs in our community…by the minute!
With over 50 local organizations working together on the backend of this site, we have already been able to meet over 150 individual needs in our community.
How does SonomaCounty.Recovers.org work?
With over 40 trained volunteer “matchers” on the backend, we are actively matching individual needs to resources in real-time as they are submitted on the website.
Fire victims can easily use the site to log a need for assistance, goods or services.
Community members can offer a donation or sign up to volunteer, noting their specific skill set and availability.
This easy sign-up process, multi-organizational collaboration and up-to-date recovery information makes this the most powerful site for helping meet the individual needs of our community following this crisis.
Simple, nimble and accessible, it has forever changed how communities can collaborate to support each other during and after a crisis.
How can you get involved?
If you know of an organization involved in disaster relief, invite them to use this tool! It’s free of charge and available to our local non profits to facilitate coordinate and collaboration. They just need to go to SonomaCounty.Recovers.org and apply as a representative of a local organization.
If you are interested in volunteering as a community need “matcher”, please email sonomacountyrecovers@gmail.com with “Matcher” in the subject line. Donations can also be logged on this site. When a need is submitted that matches your donation offer, we’ll make the connection!
Together, we can not only re-build our community, but we can create a more resilient, equitable and networked community and healthy ecosystem.
