Here's how three different volunteers, a student, a mother and a retiree, found the answers to these questions when they stepped up to help out in disasters.
Can I really do it?
Asia Baez was searching for ways to help with hurricane recovery and found volunteer opportunities through All Hands and Hearts. The 22-year-old just graduated from Hofstra University and wanted to volunteer for part of her gap year before graduate school. It took her less than 10 minutes to sign up online, and within two weeks she received an email confirming the dates she selected.
"To me the most valuable thing in the world is time, and of course as a student I didn't have much money to donate for disasters," explained Baez, "So I wanted to offer what I did have, which is me and what I can do to help."
But what could she do? That was the question Baez asked herself. She didn't have skills in carpentry or construction, and she did not look like what she imagined a disaster volunteer to be.
"I wasn't sure to what extent I'd be able to help considering my size and lack of experience but I figured at the very least I had a pair of able hands and I wanted to help." Baez told CNN. "That's what mattered.""
Baez deployed to Houston for two weeks to help rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Harvey. She then decided to help in Puerto Rico for another two weeks. Baez ended up staying for five weeks after growing close to the family whose roof her team was replacing. The Rhode Island native wanted to see the project through to completion.
Her gap year was now turning into a volunteer year, but Baez signed up for another trip with All Hands and Hearts to help a community in Mexico rebuild from an earthquake that struck years earlier.
Baez says she is moved by the people she helped, and inspired by those volunteering beside her.
"What stuck with me," she explained, "is that it is just ordinary people like you and me who are doing this. We just put our heads together and got it done. You will be able to contribute something, you just have to be willing."
Will I really be able to help?
Kathleen Esterly first volunteered on the Gulf Coast, fixing homes for Hurricane Katrina victims. It was years after the hurricane made landfall, and Esterly said she was surprised to see families still living in FEMA trailers. It made an impression on her that others will always need help. She resolved to be ready to answer that call.
That call came with the fires in California raging hours away from her home. Esterly's daughter, Veronica, prodded her into action by asking her mother how they could help.
"I wanted us to go and volunteer together, but I was worried we wouldn't really be able to help," Esterly told CNN. "Not knowing what their needs are or how to help them worried me. So when I got there, I had no idea what to expect and I was really surprised that the organization had everything figured out, with our jobs assigned, disaster training set up and leaders ready to guide us."
Esterly and her daughter volunteered with Samaritan's Purse, helping victims of the Carr Fire go through the ash of their homes to see what could be salvaged. Their week of volunteering extended to multiple weeks as their desire to help grew.
"We got hooked with our very first homeowner. They are speechless. They can't believe their eyes when they see this army of volunteers coming to help them," Explained Esterly. "To see them get filled with hope after a few hours, to help with that transformation from such despair, I can't imagine doing anything better."
Esterly's other daughter Tyra joined them on their next volunteer trip, and the family has continued to volunteer with Samaritan's Purse responding to Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Michael and the Camp Fire.
"Doing this together, it is better than vacation in my opinion," the mother said. "It has knit our hearts together in a way I don't think anything else has. What I've seen it do is that it has taken us as a family and made us more real, our conversations are of substance and we are not taking each other for granted."
Do they even need me?
Bill Blair was watching a college football game on TV when a halftime special showed Team Rubicon helping the recovery efforts after Hurricane Harvey.
"I watched it and literally the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I said 'oh my gosh I'm a vet, I'm retired, I could do that,'" Blair told CNN.
He completed all the online forms but wasn't sure if he would get the call. But in a little over a week, Blair found himself in Houston rebuilding houses as a volunteer.
It was surprising to Blair not only that he was needed, but that he was needed so quickly. Once he was on the ground, he was taken aback at the scale of the operation.
"The commanding general staff, they really know how to set up in a disaster like this, with so many veterans involved to make it run like a well-oiled operation. They supplied us with everything, tools, food, a place to sleep, you name it, so we could focus on doing the work."
Blair has deployed with Team Rubicon to disasters in Texas, California, North Carolina and Florida. He has seen the operations grow in size with more volunteers arriving each week to relieve exhausted crews.
"When I woke up this morning to see the new 50 or 60 people that were getting the orientation as we were leaving, I'm gone going, 'Holy smokes, how are we going to do this?'" Blair explained while volunteering with Team Rubicon's Hurricane Michael relief in Florida. "But we will do it because we all we have to. And as the disasters keep rolling, we're still going to be recovering from this one. And then another one is going to hit."
How to get started
If you decide to volunteer, don't just rush out to the scene to help. It is often challenging for disaster response organizations when spontaneous volunteers just show up and then become a strain on resources and the recovery itself.
Find an organization working on the ground through groups like NVOAD and VolunteerMatch. Register with them, complete their online training and be patient. It might take some time before the organization can send you where you will be most effective, but the need is great and will be for a long time.
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