Dallesport resident Lora Helmer was recently inducted to ShelterBox’s Ambassador Hall of Fame for her years of service, which included raising more than $100,000 to support the organization’s mission to provide life-saving equipment to those in need living in war-torn or disaster areas.
As an ambassador volunteering with the organization since 2016, the Gorge native serves the role as an advocate in the region, traveling to attend meetings and bring awareness to people of how they can participate. She is a member of the Bingen-White Salmon Rotary Club. ShelterBox is the official project partner of Rotary International for disaster response. She also serves as a member of the organization’s Ambassador Council, which meets each month to do higher-level planning for the organization.
Gorge local Lora Helmer was recently inducted into ShelterBox’s Hall of Fame for her fundraising and awareness efforts.
JAMES MORITZ
From the organization’s website, www.shelterbox.com, ShelterBox provides humanitarian aid in the form of family-sized tents and essential items to start repairing and rebuilding homes. The organization’s kits and boxes are customized for each response, frequently items such as cooking sets, solar lights, blankets, and water filters.
Helmer said her induction to the Ambassador Hall of Fame “was very, very touching, very heartwarming, and certainly one of the best honors I could ever imagine.”
She first learned about ShelterBox in 2007 during a statewide Rotary conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. The organization was born out of a Rotary Club project in 2000 whose founders conceived of an idea “to facilitate providing families with life-saving shelter and essential tools and supplies that will enable them to rebuild their homes and transform their lives after disaster,” according to their mission statement. They also build awareness about global displacement.
It was in 2012 when she got to talking in-depth about the program with long-time member of the ShelterBox family Bill Woodard who convinced her to volunteer her skills in marketing and promotion for the organization.
Helmer said what got her excited about the organization is that it responds and adapts to specific needs on the ground, including but not limited to shelter. She gave an example of a fellow ShelterBox volunteer, Ned Morris from Walla Walla, who discovered that people living in a Malawi village were stealing from each other. “One of the items he made sure came in right away was the LuminAID solar lights. And once those solar lights were in everybody’s tents, they stopped stealing from each other. It’s all very unique.”
Over the years, Helmer has learned that the need to provide shelter to displaced people does not subside, and that the mission is becoming more important over time. “The conflicts are increasing. The world’s changing constantly and we just need to be there. And what I say often, and I think this is a key takeaway is, we fundraise in order to have what we need, where we need it, and when we need it.
“So my favorite way of describing what we do is we continue to challenge any audience I speak to if they think they’ve heard about us before, to learn something new when I’m teaching when I’m talking because it never, ever stops.”
ShelterBox USA President Kerri Murray praised Helmer’s efforts in a recent press release announcing her induction to the organization’s Hall of Fame. “Five years ago, Lora Helmer joined the team as a ShelterBox USA Ambassador, a volunteer who continually raises awareness and mobilizes charitable support for the lifesaving mission of ShelterBox. During her tenure, she has served hundreds of hours, volunteering her time to inspire others with ShelterBox’s global humanitarian work. From constructing tents and displays, to delivering inspiring presentations at Rotary Clubs and conferences, Lora has raised more than $100,000 in donations. Her volunteerism has directly enabled ShelterBox to expand its projects in some of the world’s most extreme disaster and conflict zones, including in Ukraine.”
Helmer is excited to carry this honor forward through continued messaging and raising awareness about the work ShelterBox does. She said she feels “absolutely grateful that this message is not only powerful to an individual like me, but that it resonates and continues to resonate from person to person, from Rotary club to Rotary club, who continue to support the hard work that’s being done, the innovations that are being made … Shelterbox is so ingrained in my heart, I can never stop.”
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