OUR MISSION: To repair and rebuild Louisiana homes impacted by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike; aiding in the suffering of those that were uninsured or underinsured.
Help in Disaster
Response & Recovery Efforts
The Louisiana Serve Commission is helping mobilize and train volunteers in response to the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Here are guidelines for volunteers wishing to help in this event:
An aggressive cleanup operation is under way to secure the source of the spill, recover the spilled oil, and protect environmentally sensitive sites. Oil is a toxic substance and dangerous if handled improperly. Only specially trained responders may clean it up or dispose of it. Avoid any site where the spill has made landfall and keep children and companion animals safely away. The initial response will aim at stopping the leak and containing the spill. It might appear to the public that a response has not been initiated but these sequential steps minimize the risk that areas already cleaned might again be contaminated.
If you are interested in receiving specialized training to help with the cleanup, please register at
www.volunteerlouisiana.gov or call 1-866-448-5816 for information on any volunteer opportunities as they are identified. Volunteers must register before participating in any oil spill response. You must be at least 18 years old, able to follow both written and oral directions, and meet both the training and physical requirements for the role you would fill.
Volunteers must be trained to rescue and care for the injured wildlife. Unauthorized individuals can, even with the best of intentions, harm irreparably the affected animals, some species of which are not accustomed to any kind of human interaction.
Only the Unified Command has the legal authority to decide upon the use of volunteers in an area impacted by a spill. Its decisions are contingent upon the type of oil spilled, the location and size of the spill, the appropriate clean-up strategies, and safety considerations.
Possible roles for registered and trained volunteers might include:
- Shoreline Monitor
- Donations Management
- Wildlife Marker/sitter
- Facility and Site Maintenance
- Transportation Assistant
- Administrative and Support
- Pre-impact Beach Cleanup
- Positions at the Command Post or Volunteer Reception Center
- Light construction
We appreciate deeply the nation's outpouring of support and the many offers of help. Working with the Unified Command and our partners in the community, we can recover our shorelines, care for our wildlife, and maintain the safety and security of our volunteers as well as the general public.
Four years, four storms, four stories….LADRM has an incredible story because of people like you….volunteers have been rebuilding south Louisiana. Not the government, people like you are changing lives, giving hope and showing God’s love to the victims of these devastating storms.
South Louisiana has been devastated by powerful hurricanes in the last four years. Four years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, there are still blue tarps on houses that haven’t been touched by work and lives that are destroyed because they were uninsured or underinsured. One year after hurricanes Gustav and Ike, there are the same instances in South Louisiana. The Louisiana Methodist Disaster Response Ministry funded by UMCOR and other agencies is using Case Management to do what the government hasn’t been able to accomplish. By identifying homeowners that need help we purchase materials with the grant money and have recruited volunteers from around the country as the labor. So far we have used 70,220 volunteers to rebuild New Orleans and South Louisiana due to the storms of 2005 and 2008.So
For more of our story: Click 2005 - 2008
