Volunteering in a Disaster

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Visit Volunteer Maine (see link below) to learn about opportunities to help, before, during or after emergencies.

You’re watching the news. You see a disaster happening and you want to help. You have a skill you think might be useful, or you are willing to do anything at all.

STOP

Review these guidelines before you volunteer to work at a disaster site. Following them will help you...and help the disaster victims.

Affiliate:

Register with a recognized volunteer agency. Most agencies that respond to large disasters are part of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (NVOAD) or Maine VOAD (see links below). After signing up, You will receive some basic training about working at a disaster scene. When you arrive at the scene, you will be expected, and trusted as a member of a relief organization.

To see what Maine agencies need during an emergency, visit VolunteerMaine (see link below). Volunteer and emergency management agencies statewide will be using this web site to post what they need for assistance and donations.

Make sure you are expected before arriving in a disaster affected area:

Facilities for feeding, housing, personal hygiene, and health care are usually scarce. Priority will be given to the victims and volunteers who are part of an organizational team. If you arrive on your own, you are a burden, not a help. See Affiliate, above.

Be patient and flexible:

Be prepared to step into any of a variety of roles, depending on the needs. Volunteers expecting to enter a response or relief effort in a certain capacity are often disappointed. Sometimes a volunteer's special talents are not immediately needed.

Know the liability situation

Check that there is coverage by liability clauses in the insurance structure of the volunteer agency with which you affiliate. Volunteers not registered with a disaster response organization are responsible for themselves, and have little legal protection.

Remember that the use of volunteers is a coordinated process.

Volunteers are most useful when they are able to do the right thing at the right time. That is, they are used as part of an organized recovery process. Volunteer agencies coordinate the assignment of people with abilities, skills, and training to special tasks.

Be committed to the response effort

Response and recovery work is usually dirty, monotonous, mundane, and not glamorous. There is little individual recognition. Be committed to working under such conditions.

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