“The Gold Shirts”
That is how many survivors of disasters, as well as professionals and active volunteers of major disasters describe us. The color gold in our logo and on our shirts represents the value that God places on each individual’s life. Northwest Baptist Disaster Relief provides Christian love in action through meeting urgent needs of hurting humanity in crisis situations.
We provide many different types of relief including food, water, child care, laundry, repairs, rebuilding, emotional and spiritual first aid, and more. Combined with tens of thousands of SBC Disaster Relief volunteers, we are the Northwest regional expression of one of the three largest disaster relief agencies in the nation.
Our efforts have gained national and international recognition for service in crisis situations across the nation and the globe. Leaders invest significant resources to provide proper training for volunteers. Our volunteers stand ready at a moment’s notice to help the hurting and bring hope during a catastrophe.
Like every good disaster response organization or volunteer, we never self-deploy. Most frequently we are called into incidents by one of our partner organizations with whom we have standing MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding). A partial list of those would include FEMA/Homeland Security, Transportation Safety Administration, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Convoy of Hope, Mercy Medical, Military Affiliate Radio System, IMB, and BGR.
As part of SBC Disaster Relief, we are one of the original seven members of National VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) where our Executive Director serves as one of the three Tier 1 Directors. Our most recent Executive Director served on FEMA’s National Advisory Council. Because we neither raise funds nor recruit volunteers externally, we are not as well known (outside of disaster circles) as many of our partners are and we are ok with that. We aim to bring help to those suffering, and let God get the glory rather than ourselves.
Northwest Baptist Disaster Relief is a ministry of Great Commission churches in OR, WA, & Northern ID that cooperate nationally with the SBC, regionally with the Northwest Baptist Convention, and locally with the associations that help support the cooperative missions of these entities.
Northwest Baptist Disaster Relief 