World Cares Center Inc

I am continually impressed by what they are able to accomplish with a small team of dedicated Professionals. Leadership is unwavering in their dedication to the mission and those they serve. During the COVOD-19 response their swift action helped to protect front line workers and volunteers!

I worked at World Cares Center as a training development intern during the summer. The staff was a small tight knit team that helped each other and constantly used each other as sounding boards. Everyone's input was expected and appreciated.

Like many nonprofits, resources are limited, but the amount that World Cares Center does with what it has is really astounding. Perfect organization for a motivated team player who cares about disaster prep and community organization!

World Care Centers role in Hurricane Sandy's Response Relief and Recovery operations was beyond exceptions and the services to the Rockaway community was unprecedented. Post Sandy, World Care Center has partnered with Ready Rockaway Inc., and St. John's Episcopal Hospital to train individual and families in preparedness including High School and Middle School students. Lessons learned from Sandy underscores the importance of participatory education and training methods that will manifest into a resilient community. As our partnership continues with ongoing training's for all hazard emergencies, I'm thoroughly convinced that the Rockaway community will effectively be prepared for, withstand, and recovery from man-made and natural disasters.

World Cares Center came into our schools and delivered their youth safety and disaster preparedness training to our high school student. The training was great and the students related as they shared their Sandy stories. It was apparent how important this training is and how dedicated the World Cares Center team is.

Post Sandy I worked with WCC on health and safety issues for the volunteers who were doing mucking, gutting, and mold remediation. I have also worked with them on other health and safety programs. I have found them to have excellent systems in place for volunteer management, eager to learn, and open to new ideas to improve their systems. Their focus on training is an important one, as far too many volunteers are being put in harms way due to lack of training, equipment, and inadequate volunteer management.

As a Manager at Home Depot I worked directly with World Cares Center throughout the immediate months post Superstorm-Sandy . Lisa and her team were great to work with. Their attention to detail and the apparent desire to get not just the quick solution but the "best" product to get the most impact for the communities they were helping was phenomenal. This was obvious in the research they had done by requesting more specialized items.They had an immense amount of demand placed on them throughout the boroughs and they gave products,delivery information and logistics in a coordinated fashion. This may seem trivial, but it was as important to us to get the materials to the communities and homeowners as it was to WorldCares. To receive photos back from the field helping with one small step to get residents in their homes can make all the difference. Having been through multiple storm responses in various locations in the country, it was refreshing to see and find that there was a non profit disaster response organization out there that was adamant about ensuring that they were providing the safest respirators, cleaning supplies, or mold and muck out materials that one would hope to have come to their homes. In addition Lisa and her team setup a tables at the Home Depot to offer resource guides and safety materials as well as offering free trainings. It is quite unique to come across a non profit who is so passionate about education and empowering volunteers and residents alike coming together to support and build up their communities.

This organization is like the little engine that could. I volunteered with them when they were working with 200 volunteers of all shapes and sizes in the Rockaways during Sandy. They made sure we were all trained and had the right stuff to make sure we did not get sick while on the front lines of helping our neighbors.

I continue to volunteer with them and I am amazed at their willingness to not only help those in need but other volunteer organizations too. I know they train volunteers that work with any organization and also give them protective equipment like masks and gloves. Dollar for dollar they do a lot with a little.

My impression of this organization is that they are more concerned with getting funded and having their name plastered on relief materials/news articles than they are with accountability to the communities they serve. They have been difficult to work with for other organizations in the field, and have a record of providing shoddy relief services even after public health professionals warned them about the problems with their activities. They do not provide adequate supervision for their volunteers, and I have seen worksites run by WC in which volunteers did not even know the name of the organization they were working for.

World Cares Skills training for disaster relief is a joke. The rebuild group I worked with after my "training" said it was useless. You can't learn how to tape, paint, and mud in two hours. It takes days of hands on training. Non profits make money by the number of volunteers they recruits so this is really a numbers game. Register with them and they make money. Quality of their work seems to not too matter as long as they are making money for their board members. They are many organizations doing great work and they are far more deserving of your time.

I deployed to Haiti with a WCC team shortly after the earthquake in January 2012. The strength of this organizational culture is its emphasis on doing meaningful support in a chaotic environment. The main effort of this deployment was to find and organize hidden, underserved populations. It required constant and consistent effort in a hostile and difficult environment with very few resources. Yet, the results at the very grassroots level were impressive. If more organizations with very limited resources would perform in a similar way, the result would be better situational awareness and support to undeserved populations in crisis. The strength of this organization is the ability to execute quickly and efficiently.