at a glance: supporting communities affected by emergencies

We have over 6,600 volunteers on call night and day to support communities affected by fires, floods, bombs, major accidents or other emergencies.

We help by:

• managing and staffing rest centres
• providing emergency food supplies and refreshments to people affected by a disaster, and to the police, ambulance, fire and other emergency services to enable them to work effectively at the scene
• staffing telephone helplines and casualty bureaus.

We particularly help people who have nowhere else to go when a disaster strikes.

Last year we were called out 166 times and put on stand-by another 135 times. WRVS volunteers helped at a number of rest centres and supported emergency services attending the rail crash in Greyrigg, Cumbria, and worked for a week during late January supporting people affected by severe storms in East Anglia. In all we helped more than
11,500 people affected by an emergency.