Texanthropy Spotlight: Bastrop County Long Term Recovery Team - 2016 Governor’s Volunteer Award Winner
This week we are spotlighting the Bastrop County Long Term Recovery Team, the winner of the 2016 Governor’s Volunteer Award for Community Leadership for Disaster Response. This award honors organizations who are dedicated to finding solutions that strengthen their communities by focusing on the importance of service, developing connections between groups and individuals, and inspiring their community to serve.
In 2011, after the most destructive wildfire in Texas history, the Bastrop County Long Term Recovery Team was born. In the four years after the fire, the Team provided case management and coordinated thousands of volunteers who cleaned up debris and rebuilt 133 homes. In 2015, disaster struck again in the short span of only five months: the floods of April 19, the Memorial Day Flood and Tornados, the Lost Pines Fire, and the Halloween Flood. The Bastrop County Long Term Recovery Team jumped into action again, providing shelter, food, and coordinating hundreds of volunteers that tarped roofs, cleaned out and repaired flood damaged homes, and rebuilt homes destroyed by fire damage.
Using the lessons they learned from this series of disasters, the Bastrop Long Term Recovery Team has assisted in the formation and operation of many other Long Term Recovery Organizations within the State of Texas, as well as in other states across the country.
To learn more about the Bastrop Long Term Recovery Team and how you can get involved, visit http://www.bastropcountylongtermrecovery.org/. Thank you to the Team for all that you do to help your fellow Texans, and congratulations on the much-deserved 2016 Governor’s Volunteer Award for Community Leadership for Disaster Response.
Photo courtesy of the Bastrop County Long Term Recovery Team