by Liz Daube
Staff Writer
As people connect to roommates through Craigslist, friends via MySpace and jobs on Monster.com, Jacksonville-based Neighbors to the Rescue is matching volunteers with the people who need them most.
“With a big disaster happening, there is a lot of social anxiety within the community,” said Suzanne Yack, who started Neighbors to the Rescue with nonprofit FreshMinistries last December. “We want to help, but we don’t know how to help.”
Organization of Neighbors to the Rescue began in response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, who fled to Jacksonville and other communities around the country after the storm. So far, the program has launched nine Web sites for communities throughout Florida and helped hundreds of people find clothing, shelter, meals, vehicles, medical and legal services, jobs and more.
The program continues to expand. Neighbors to the Rescue officially moved to the Florida Hurricane Relief Fund this summer, and Yack said people from as far as Ohio have asked about creating similar efforts.
“It gave people something to do in response to it (the hurricanes) that was meaningful,” said Yack. “It’s about tapping into those social networking, online communities.”
Like many online communities, Neighbors to the Rescue is difficult to describe. Yack calls it a brainchild, a grassroots effort, social change. Carl Smith, who helped develop the Web site at online design firm nGen Works, calls it a streamlined, community-focused, secured version of Craigslist.
In simple terms, Neighbors to the Rescue is an online warehouse. Volunteers can list items or services they want to donate by filling out an electronic form. People in crisis – those left homeless or destitute after a natural disaster or other tragedy – can list their needs. Local administrators, or “team leaders,” then act as matchmakers: They look at both lists, confer with a network of other nonprofit organizations and volunteers and connect the haves with the have-nots.
The online warehouse presents a unique new way to connect donations and volunteer service with the needy, according to Sue Nelson. She directs disaster response for Volunteer Jacksonville, the nonprofit that administers the local Neighbors to the Rescue Web site. Volunteer Jacksonville organizes volunteer efforts with more than 600 nonprofits, both local and national.
Nelson said a flood of donations followed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as they do in most natural disasters, overwhelming volunteers and organizations.
“It (the online warehouse) enables people to make a donation to a local family in need without any one agency having to worry about warehousing a number of items,” said Nelson. “It also helps give gratification for people who want to help instantly.”
There are no strict guidelines for the types of donations that can be listed on the site. Nelson said that kind of open-arms approach to donations would be difficult, if not logistically impossible, for physical warehouses.
“It really is all encompassing,” she said. “It (a donation) could be something as simple as a blanket or as complex as financial counseling.”
General users can’t see the donations available, but Smith said the site was designed with simplicity in mind. People are supposed to use the site based on a friend’s referral and instructions, he said. When a donation match is made, the people deliver their items directly to the people who need them. The communication evolves from e-mail to phone calls to in-person meetings.
Yack said those connections are the ultimate goal of Neighbors to the Rescue. Some people just deliver some frozen meals and move on, she said – but others develop a relationship with the people they help.
“Some people will say, ‘I’m going to be your fairy godmother. Let’s go to Target and get you everything you need,’ ” said Yack. “We wanted this to be more of a social movement than a program.”