American Volunteer Emergency Response Team Answer the call
Pickup and box trucks with amber lights push through storm surge on a flooded coastal street at dusk

American Volunteer Emergency Response Team

Hold on. We're on our way.

When a hurricane, flood or wildfire tears through a town, AVERT volunteers load up donated food, water and supplies and drive toward the damage. Then we put it in the hands of the people who need it.

Answer the call Send help
Watch the road

Photo illustration

Citizen soldiers, no uniform required

Most days we are your neighbors, with day jobs and families of our own.

On the worst day, we are the headlights coming down your road.

Field bulletin

  • Relaunch underway
  • Volunteer roles open now
  • Advisory board: five seats
  • Distribution center managers wanted near hurricane, wildfire and flood country
  • Development officers wanted
  • In danger right now? Call 911

Who we are

Neighbors first. Responders when it counts.

AVERT, the American Volunteer Emergency Response Team, is an all volunteer disaster relief team based in Arkansas. We carry donated supplies into disaster areas in person and hand them to the people who need them, along with the first responders and charities already working there.

We took to the road in the 2017 hurricane season with a simple idea. Not everyone can pack up and go when disaster strikes, so the people who can go should carry everyone else's generosity with them. We call it being the deliverers and stewards of your donations.

Standing ordersAVERT field manual, page one

  1. Everyone is a volunteer.

    AVERT runs on a 100 percent volunteer basis. Nobody draws a paycheck from your gift.

  2. Your gift rides with us.

    We carry your donations ourselves, from the moment they arrive to the hands that need them.

  3. We show you the work.

    We post from the field so you can watch your support arrive where it was needed.

  4. We back everyone on the ground.

    We support first responders and every charity already working the disaster. Relief is not a competition.

How help gets there

From the first call to your street.

Every deployment follows the same road, from the moment disaster strikes to the moment supplies reach the people who need them.

  1. Dark storm clouds over a coastal street as a utility pole leans and power lines sag in the wind
    Photo illustration

    1The call

    The storm hits.

    A hurricane makes landfall, a river crests, a fire jumps the ridge. We track the damage and ask the people on the ground what they need most.

  2. Pallets of bottled water, canned food, blankets and pet food stacked in a church hall while rain streaks the windows
    Photo illustration

    2The load

    Gifts become cargo.

    Your donations turn into fuel for the trip and the specific supplies people asked for. Volunteers cover their own training and gear so your gift goes further.

  3. Volunteers in reflective vests load cases of water into a box truck at night in heavy rain
    Photo illustration

    3The road

    We drive toward the damage.

    Teams head in with food, water, blankets, pet food and the essentials that run out first.

  4. A volunteer in a yellow rain jacket wades through floodwater to hand a case of water to a man on his porch
    Photo illustration

    4Hand to hand

    Help reaches people.

    Supplies go straight to families, first responders and the charities serving them. We post from the field so you can see your gift arrive.

  5. 5Destination

    Your town.

    Wherever the water rose or the fire burned, that is where we are headed. You are not facing it alone.

What we carry

A short manifest, on purpose.

When the power is out and the stores are closed, people need the basics first. That is what we load.

  • Lot 01Water
  • Lot 02Food
  • Lot 03Blankets
  • Lot 04Pet food
  • Lot 05Essentials

Pets are family too, so they get a lot of their own. And when someone on the ground asks for something specific, it goes on the load as well. Why we ask before anything ships.

Pledge supplies

From the field

Real photos. Real deployments.

Taken by AVERT volunteers on the job, from the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian to the parking lots where the loads come together.

  • A volunteer in a blue shirt stands on a tiled slab and looks out over a field of flattened homes and debris under a gray sky.
    Taking stock of what Hurricane Dorian left behind.
  • A volunteer in the bed of a green pickup hands a yellow water jug down to two residents, one holding a box of cereal, on a street of storm damaged townhouses.
    Water and food handed out from the back of a pickup.
  • AVERT volunteers in green and navy AVERT shirts, with two boys, in front of a white supply trailer hung with an American flag.
    The crew in front of the supply trailer.
  • Eleven responders and three search dogs gather in front of storm stripped trees.
    A search and rescue team and its dogs between missions.
  • Pallets of bottled water and gallon jugs wrapped in plastic on a dock beside a gray patrol ship flying the flag of the Bahamas.
    Water on the dock beside a Defence Force ship.
  • The cabin of a small plane packed with cases of bottled water, bags and boxes, with a passenger in a fire rescue T shirt in the front seat.
    A relief flight with every seat taken by supplies.
  • Two men pull a blue tarp off a load of three boxed portable generators, a propane tank and cases of water on a waterfront lawn.
    Generators, propane and water ready to go out.
  • Open boxes of donated goods, paper towels and cleaning supplies spread across a parking lot while a volunteer sorts them.
    Sorting donations before they go on the trailer.

Recognized for service

  • President’s Lifetime Achievement AwardMichael Brewer, 2023
  • Letter of appreciationU.S. Senator Mark R. Warner, 2018
  • Letter of support to FEMAU.S. Representative Darren Soto, 2018
  • Kentucky ColonelGovernor Andy Beshear, 2022
  • Arkansas TravelerGovernor Asa Hutchinson, 2022
Read the letters See every photo

Field record

Where we have been. Where help stages next.

  1. 2017

    Harvey, Irma and Maria

    The documented 2017 hurricane season. Volunteers worked recovery in Texas after Hurricane Harvey and in Florida after Hurricane Irma, then coordinated medical and support volunteers who delivered aid to over 400 families in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, including five weeks in the mountain town of Jayuya.

  2. 2018

    Florence in the Carolinas

    Back on the road after Hurricane Florence in North and South Carolina, carried by hundreds of individual donors across 2017 and 2018.

  3. 2019

    Dorian in the Bahamas

    After Hurricane Dorian, AVERT's Florida team went to the Abaco Islands with Florida Search and Rescue to run triage and medical aid and help airlift patients to Nassau. Volunteers handed out water, food and generators and joined search and rescue missions, including one that found a missing Canadian man on Treasure Cay.

  4. 2026

    The relaunch

    AVERT is rebuilding for the long haul with an advisory board, regional distribution centers and a development team, so the next response moves faster.

Along the way AVERT was commended by communities we served, by organizations we supported and by members of the United States House and Senate. Read the letters.

Disaster countryGeneralized by state. Not a forecast.
Show where these disasters most often hit
Map of the United States showing generalized disaster regions Choose hurricanes, wildfires or floods to highlight the states where those disasters most often hit, plus a staging belt of neighboring states that sit near the danger but outside it. Storm symbols mark the three 2017 hurricanes in AVERT's field record: Harvey in Texas, Irma in Florida and Maria in Puerto Rico. HarveyTexas 2017 IrmaFlorida 2017 MariaPuerto Rico 2017
Regions are generalized by state for illustration only. They are not a forecast.

Live near the edge of disaster country?

AVERT is building regional distribution centers before the next disaster, not during it. If you live near, but not inside, a hurricane, wildfire or flood zone and can lend some space and time, raise your hand.

Offer space

The relaunch

Four ways to answer the call.

AVERT is relaunching, and we need skilled volunteers to get it off the ground. Here is what is on the board right now.

AVERT duty boardRelaunch October 2026

Not sure where you fit? Tell us what you bring and we will help you find the right seat.

Raise your hand
A box truck parked in receding floodwater beside a storm damaged neighborhood at sunrise

Photo illustration

Give

Not everyone can pack up and go. Your gift can.

AVERT runs entirely on donations. Every gift becomes fuel, food, water and supplies carried by volunteers straight into disaster country, and we post from the field so you can watch it arrive.

Give on GoFundMe Pledge supplies