Susie haynie

Susie is a wife and a mom of 2 grownups now. Empty nest is a real thing. Susie has worked as a substitute teacher and Title I assistant while her kids were school age. 

Susie has been working in customer service and retail for years and most recently has been an admin support for real estate and diabetic supply offices. 

Susie's husband has worked in the HAZMAT/Industrial clean-up efforts for several hurricanes. 

She saw the devastation firsthand when she traveled down to Ocean Springs with her husband after Hurricane Katrina. 

After seeing houses ripped from their foundations, businesses trying to open back up, and trees just stripped of life, it stuck with her for years after talking to those who lived through it.

Susie says she remembers telling her husband, "somebody has to do something about this".  Skip ahead to around 2016 and Patti reached out to Susie to help with disaster relief. She had no idea what she could do but eventually was finding resources for people in our groups. 

We had groups set up for Hurricane Michael for Florida and for Camp Fire in CA and then we set up a group for Midwest Flooding in 2019. Patti and Susie talked and decided there needed to be groups for all states. So they got busy. 

Now, thanks to the team, there are groups representing all states for weather and disaster information and our 501c3/non-profit is so important to us. I

A note from Susie:

I volunteer my time because I feel it is important for people to have vital information. Especially since I can no longer work outside the home. I have worked on building a Facebook training group for our admins and moderators and we have so many goals to reach. 

My personal goal is to do outreach with Officials on the ground in these disasters and to see what we can do to assist their citizens. I want to build a place for volunteers to work safely in a disaster situation. I started the hashtag #VolunteerHearts and that is what we need to help people. I want to pay forward what I have learned over the years. Imagine everyone learning how to volunteer and communicate to help others!