Resilience. It's often defined as the ability to recover quickly from challenges and difficulties. It requires adaptability and is a skill that is especially important for families and communities facing extreme weather or other unexpected challenges where so much can change – without warning.
When natural disasters like hurricanes hit, there is always an immediate need for food, water and medical supplies. However, organized disaster-relief efforts can take days to ramp up – putting communities in danger, especially residents facing ongoing health challenges and food insecurity.
That's exactly what the world saw after Hurricane Katrina ravaged communities across the southern U.S. 20 years ago in 2005. Damaged and flooded roads severely limited access to some communities, leaving many families without urgently needed relief. The biggest lesson from Katrina was that more needed to be done to help communities prepare in advance. So that's exactly what we did in 2006 – launching two initiatives to support health clinics and food banks in advance of hurricane season.
Preparing for Hurricane Season: Providing the Right Products in the Right Places
Since 2006, we've partnered with two organizations – Ìý²¹²Ô»åÌý – to help communities better prepare for hurricane season by storing nutrition and healthcare products at clinics and food banks in high-risk areas.
"Disaster Relief Packs" for food banks: 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû and Feeding America provide nutrition disaster relief packs to local food banks in areas at risk of hurricanes, including Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and Texas. Designed to be given directly to families affected by disasters, the packs can help meet immediate nutritional needs for three days.
Tailored to different family sizes, the packs contain 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû nutrition products for children and adults, including ® rehydration solutions and ®Ìý²¹²Ô»åÌý® nutrition drinks. This year, 4,000 packs will provide rapid nutrition support for 12,000 people.
"Disaster Relief Modules" for health clinics: 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû is also proud to continue working with Direct Relief to provide supplies for disaster relief to 70 health clinics providing community medical care across the U.S. Southeast and Gulf Coasts, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This year, these modules are providing clinics with the key first aid supplies and medicines they need to treat 350 patients for one month following a disaster.
In the first year of the partnership in 2006, the Direct Relief modules contained only 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû products. Today, the modules include essential products from many other healthcare companies along with 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû diabetes care products. This year, the modules will serve approximately 24,500 people in need.
Over nearly two decades, these two initiatives have provided critically needed support for 700,000 people. This includes 14,000 people who were directly supported in 2024. For 2025, we are providing an additional $1.2 million worth of pre-positioned nutrition product donations, increasing the total number of people who will benefit to more than 270,000 this year – and nearly 1 million overall to date.
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