2025 Year In Review

A disaster can take just minutes to upend the life you knew: homes lost, schools destroyed, entire communities left to pick up the pieces. Recovery, however, takes time. Together, we meet the urgent needs, stand with communities through recovery, and help rebuild stronger futures

As we mark 20 years of All Hands & Hearts, we remember the roots of our mission in the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, and reaffirm our commitment to helping communities recover and thrive after disaster.

From the U.S. to Myanmar, our teams responded globally to crises and rebuilt schools across continents. Through the combined efforts of communities, volunteers, partners, and donors, we’ve turned crisis into hope.

Below, you’ll find a glimpse of the countless stories of resilience that defined our work this year.

When asked what he looks forward to most once his home is ready, Roland smiled: “Cooking a meal again, in my own house.” For Roland, and many families like his, recovery means restoring the everyday moments that make a house, a home.

When Hurricane Helene struck Florida, floodwaters swept through neighborhoods, destroying walls and washing away treasured belongings. Weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit again, deepening the devastation. Mold quickly became a silent threat, making homes unsafe and forcing families into months of displacement and uncertainty.

At All Hands & Hearts, we know emergency aid brings stability, but true recovery takes time. That’s why we arrive early to provide emergency clean-up, leading muck & gut efforts that clear mud, debris, and damaged walls and floors, and remain long-term to rebuild homes, restore community life, and help families prepare for a stronger future.

Terry, a florist in Swannanoa, North Carolina, shared these words after Helene’s floods left her shop filled with mud, broken glass, and the loss of all her flowers.

When All Hands & Hearts arrived, our volunteers carried out critical repairs, from the floor to the roof, to bring the store back into full operation.

For people like Terry, who give so much to others even while facing loss, this support meant more than repairs: it meant a new beginning. Her shop once again brings comfort and color to her neighbors.

Reviving small businesses drives local economies and play an important role in disaster recovery. They provide essential goods, services and jobs, and seeing them up and running again brings neighbors that much-needed sense of normalcy and stability. In supporting small business recovery, we’re helping accelerate economic revival and strengthen the community’s resilience from the ground up.

When Connie returned home after the January 2025 wildfires, it was no longer the safe haven she knew. After being evacuated twice, she came back to walls coated in ash and air thick with smoke residue.

Like many wildfire survivors whose homes weren’t destroyed but were damaged by smoke, Connie’s recovery went largely unseen. With no insurance and limited assistance, she and her husband faced the cleanup alone.

Across Los Angeles and nearby communities, hundreds of families experienced the same hidden impact, homes left standing but unsafe to live in, filled with lingering smoke, soot, and toxins. In areas like Altadena, where many residents are renters or low-income households, remediation costs were far out of reach.

To meet this need, All Hands & Hearts, together with partner organizations, launched a smoke remediation response, drawing on expertise from last year’s wildfire recovery in Hawaii.

This was the reality after the Fourth of July floods: exhaustion, uncertainty, and families left empty-handed. The true weight of this disaster wasn’t only in the destruction of homes or landscapes: it was in the sheer scale of loss and the human toll it left behind.

In the days that followed, neighbors poured into the local fire station — an overwhelming surge of spontaneous volunteers eager to help their community recover. Amid the chaos, All Hands & Hearts stepped into coordinate these efforts, channeling goodwill into action. During the initial stabilization, we provided food, clean water, critical essentials, and safe temporary housing. For families in Texas, that simple act, being able to take a shower again, meant relief and dignity.

As recovery continued, our teams led muck & gut operations, mold sanitations, and home rebuilds, helping families restore a sense of normalcy. While headlines have moved on, we continue to show up every day for those affected by the Texas floods.

Ram is no longer afraid when typhoons come.

After storms repeatedly damaged his school, Ram’s father, Rhed, joined All Hands & Hearts as a volunteer to help rebuild it. The new school is safe and built with care to withstand future storms—bringing peace of mind to families and security for students like Ram, who can now focus on learning to read and write.

This year, All Hands & Hearts completed two new school rebuilds in the Philippines, prioritizing sustainable, disaster-resilient construction. Using Cement Bamboo Frame Technology, these schools are built to endure extreme weather and seismic activity while supporting local bamboo farmers and reducing carbon emissions. Bamboo grows quickly, is locally available, and has a low environmental footprint, making it an ideal, climate-friendly material for building safe schools in disaster-prone communities.

In Nepal, where All Hands & Hearts rebuilds schools damaged by disasters, the Female Mason Training Program gives women like Ramila the opportunity to learn, lead, and build lasting change.

Every day, she walked two hours each way to attend her training — determined to build a better future for herself and her community. Her perseverance paid off: she is now one of the many women in Nepal transforming the construction landscape.

Since 2017, this program has been breaking barriers and empowering women with hands-on training in sustainable masonry and construction techniques. It not only provides women with livelihoods, but also strengthens entire communities, as trainees directly contribute to rebuilding disaster-resilient, sustainable infrastructure.

In our latest Nepal program, female masons like Ramila helped reconstruct Bandevi School, creating safe new classrooms for children who are still learning in dilapidated, temporary structures a decade after the 2015 earthquakes — and reshaping the very narrative of who can be a builder of resilience.

“As parents, we were worried that the roof could collapse on the children or the teachers.”

After Hurricane John brought more than a week of violent rain to Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, classrooms were severely damaged: ceilings leaking, walls soaked, and roofs at risk of collapsing. Mold and moisture spread quickly, creating unsafe environments for students and teachers. The loss of safe classrooms disrupted education, while parents were forced to stay home to care for their children.

Our focus was to bring children back to school as quickly as possible after the disaster, restoring safety, stability, and normalcy. Throughout this program, All Hands & Hearts repaired 17 classrooms and 2 playgrounds, directly supporting more than 950 students and 75 teachers. The rebuilt schools now provide bright, secure spaces designed to withstand future storms — helping children learn, play, and thrive once again, while parents rebuild their homes and return to work.

After a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar and neighboring countries, All Hands & Hearts mobilized a response from Thailand within 24 hours, immediately connecting with trusted local partners. We supported urgent relief for thousands by delivering cash assistance, clean water, shelter materials, clothing, and hygiene supplies to over 4,400 people in the first two weeks.

Even after media attention faded, our support continued for months. We supported an extensive WASH program that rebuilt water boreholes, distributed clean water filters, and provided hygiene education and psychosocial support across 12 of the hardest-hit villages. In total, these efforts reached more than 9,000 people, ensuring immediate relief and sustainable, long-term access to safe water.

When a series of powerful earthquakes struck hundreds of villages in remote eastern Afghanistan, entire villages were turned to rubble and families were left to sleep out in the open, exposed to the cold mountain air. For Azmat and his neighbors, every day was a struggle for survival, huddled in tents, uncertain if they would ever feel safe in a home again.

In the weeks that followed, All Hands & Hearts’ locally led team reached some of the hardest-to-access communities across steep and rugged terrain, where landslides had cut off roads and little to no aid was coming. They delivered food staples, cooking stoves, solar panels, blankets and fuel, essentials that helped families endure the freezing cold nights, with winter rapidly approaching.

Nearly 850 families in the village of Patan alone, among several other villages, received this critical support, bringing warmth, stability and a small sense of normalcy back to their lives. For Azmat and so many others, the aid meant they wouldn’t have to endure this alone.

In early October, All Hands & Hearts’ first convoys carrying essential aid arrived in Gaza, marking the start of an ongoing humanitarian effort to reach families in crisis.

Across Gaza, families are returning following the ceasefire to damaged homes or sheltering in makeshift tents, facing empty markets and soaring food prices. We have been providing daily shipments of fresh fruits and vegetables, allowing families the agency and dignity to prepare meals once again while combating growing malnutrition, especially among children.

Our ongoing shipments now reach hundreds of thousands of people, delivering not only food, but also hygiene kits, medicine for clinics and hospitals, therapeutic foods to combat child malnutrition, and shelter materials such as tarps and tents. With winter rapidly approaching, these essentials are helping families protect their children and find safety and comfort amid displacement for the months ahead.

Each delivery is a lifeline. For thousands of families, it means the difference between hunger and nourishment, despair and resilience.

As we reflect on 20 years of impact, we are moved by gratitude for the communities, volunteers, partners, and donors who make our work possible.

From rebuilding homes and schools to providing emergency aid and long-term resilience programs, your support has helped families recover, children get back to safe schools, and communities emerge stronger after disasters around the world.

In a world of increasing disasters and uncertainty, All Hands & Hearts’ promise stays the same: we are committed to responding wherever and whenever disaster strikes, and staying beside communities for as long as recovery takes.

On behalf of our entire team, we thank you for standing with us. Your support, compassion, and belief in the power of many hands and hearts make every success possible, and together, we will continue to turn devastation into hope.