May News and Updates

May 31, 2023

Community Emergency Response Teams

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training educates volunteers and community members about basic life saving skills and disaster preparedness.

Team members are able to use their new knowledge and skills to volunteer during disasters and assist emergency response organizations and first responders. CERT training includes topics like fire safety, light search and rescue, disaster medical operations, and disaster preparedness.

Thanks to generous sponsorships from Community Foundation of Abilene and Abilene Christian University, the upcoming CERT course is FREE and you will receive a CERT backpack full of personal protective equipment for the training!

United Rescue Alliance wants you to be the next CERT member! You are welcome to sign up as an individual but everything is more fun in a group so grab your family, your neighbors, your church group, and anyone else you can think of and spend June 21-24 getting CERT trained!

Tel Aviv University Partnership

This school year, United Rescue Alliance had the opportunity to host an intern from Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Our intern, Hannah Salamon, a Master of Emergency Management student, excelled in every way throughout her internship and recently started on her capstone project with URA. The project consisted of a Virtual Tabletop Exercise that URA hosted with our staff and local partners. The exercise was aimed at identifying best-practice ways that emergency response organizations can implement URA’s Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, and Social Health (MESSH) framework (copyright pending).

The exercise was a huge success and we are so grateful to all those who participated and are proud to have had Hannah Salamon as our intern!

URA Guatemala Updates

United Rescue Alliance’s Guatemala team had a big month of conferences and trainings!

A church in El Jocotillo, Villa Canales, a city that URA Guatemala works in regularly, was impacted by a storm and suffered structural damage. The URA Guatemala team helped to repair the damage and with the construction of a new building. At the beginning of this month the team attended the opening of the new church building and celebrated with the community!

Also in El Jocotillo, Villa Canales, URA Guatemala presented a training to Sunday School teachers at a local church. The training included best-practice ways that teachers can share the gospel with elementary aged children.

The team had the opportunity to attend a conference with partner agencies such as Catch the Fire, His Original Design, and Semilla de Fe Church. During the conference, the team spent time fostering their personal relationship with God, and collaborated on ways to implement that relationship into their team practices.

ACU & Community Foundation Grant

Recently, United Rescue Alliance submitted an application Community Foundation of Abilene for CERT Program Support and URA was awarded $10,000!

Abilene Christian University has a Strategic Philanthropy course where students are given $50,000 to allocate to different faith based organizations in the community. We are so grateful to have been referred as a potential candidate for funding by Community Foundation of Abilene and received $10,000 in funding from the student board. Our team had the honor of attending the formal giving ceremony where students presented the grants. The support from both of these grants provided URA with $20,000 of program support for CERT.

Thank you to Community Foundation of Abilene and Abilene Christian University for the support!

Exalt Conference

The URA team had the opportunity to attend the Exalt Conference in Rockwall, Texas hosted by Rockwall United.

This conference was an opportunity to pray, worship, and interceed in prayer for local churches. United Rescue Alliance was invited as prayer support, and as an opportunity to connect to other organizations and churches in partnership.

Throughout the conference, the URA team had several opportunities to share impactful words from the Lord, and pray for our partners across Texas, America, and the globe. The URA team is so grateful for this experience and is excited to participate again next year!

Kaleido Conference in Washington D.C

United Rescue Alliance’s CEO and Founder, Angel Poorman, was invited to Washington D.C to participate in the Kaleido Roundtable hosted by the North America Center Against Human Trafficking and Exploitation.

This event was focused on collaborating with leaders from across America to identify creative ways to combat human trafficking on a global scale. In addition to productive discussion, participants engaged in dialogue with author and speaker, Cindy Jacobs.

The next event will be held in July in Washington D.C to move the initiative and network forward.

(325) 310-4883

More info at Unitedrescuealliance.org

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