Evacuteer.org reports to City Council

NEW ORLEANS–On Thursday January 7, 2010, evacuteer.org director Robert Fogarty presented to the City Council the organization’s 2009 accomplishments and 2010 goals. In addition to the eight minute presentation, Councilmembers Jackie Clarkson, Cynthia Willard-Lewis and Arnie Fielkow gave positive feedback and asked engaged questions. Colonel Jerry Sneed director of the City’s Office of Homeland Security was scheduled to testifiy as well but had to attend to another matter. After the meeting, he sent an email to all of the council members:

“I feel it is important for you to know how well this organization is doing and how we plan to continue to use them.  I can’t emphasize enough to you how important I think this organization is…”

In 2009:

~evacuteer.org  recruited and trained 21 partner organizations and 426 “evacuteers” (evacuation + volunteers) nearly every Saturday throughout hurricane season in partnership with the Red Cross to train citizen volunteers on their roles within the City Assisted Evacuation Plan in advance of a category three or higher storm.
~evacuteer.org  developed a defined and direct training program providing information on roles of citizen volunteers in the CAEP
~evacuteer.org  received its 501c3 tax exempt status from the IRS six weeks after sending the application on model cooperative non-profit government model based much off of Parkway Partners where the City’s applicable director has a seat on the board and the non-profit’s mission is to directly enhance an initiative overseen by the government(In our case it’s Col. Sneed, in Parkway Partners, its Ann MacDonald)
~evacuteer.org  developed an extensive social media following on twitter and facebook and traditional media outlets WDSU, WGNO, WVUE, WWOZ, WWNO, WEZB, the Times Picayune, the Gambit’s “40 under 40 issue” featured evacuteer.org
~evacuteer.org founder  Robert Fogarty presented to a group of Pakistani diplomats on a trip to America studying recovery and disaster sponsored by the US Department of State
~evacuteer.org  founder Robert Fogarty presented to the World Conference on Disaster Management about utilizing branding and social media innovation to engage citizens in disaster preparedness.

2010 goals:
~Host a beginning of hurricane summit for all 426 evacuteers and partner organizations to dust off CAEP concepts and prepare for storm season as well as new possible partner organizations
~Have all 17 CAEP pick-up points “adopted” by neighborhood associations and/or faith based groups
~Increase unaffiliated volunteer involvement by 20 percent to from 100 unaffiliated volunteer to  120
~Increase partner organization involvement and commitment by 30 percent form 21 groups to 28