Each year on September 11, the National Day of Service and Remembrance honors lives lost while reminding us of the power of service to heal, unite, and strengthen our communities. The spirit of this day is embodied by the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), a nationwide network of almost 300,000 volunteers who step up every day to protect public health, respond to emergencies, and build community resilience.

A National Network of Dedicated Volunteers

The MRC is composed of over 700 community-based units across the U.S. and its territories. Volunteers range from licensed medical and public health professionals to community members without medical training who want to help. Together, they prepare for and respond to emergencies while supporting routine public health needs. From staffing blood drives to providing shelter support, these volunteers are vital for local resilience.

Core Capabilities

Each MRC unit develops foundational skills like CPR, Psychological First Aid, Stop the Bleed, and Incident Command training. Many units excel at sheltering, running points of distribution, and providing public health education. Beyond core capabilities, many units have specialized skill sets such as behavioral health support, radiological response, and veterinary support.

Partnerships that Strengthen Response

Collaboration is at the heart of the MRC’s success. One of its most enduring partnerships is with the American Red Cross. For over 15 years, the two organizations have worked together, and a renewed national agreement further strengthens this bond. This partnership promotes integrated responses, joint training, and improved coordination during emergencies.

Recent examples showcase the impact:

• Texas Flood Response (2025): MRC volunteers partnered with Red Cross, the Jonah Community Center, Austin Disaster Relief Network, World Central Kitchen, Humanitarian Emergency Response Organization, Hope Animal-Assistance Crisis Response, and others to response and recovery efforts by administering first aid, supporting mental health initiatives, providing veterinary support, and more.
• St. Louis Tornado Response (2025): MRC volunteers provided first aid and other health services at two Red Cross shelters.
• Oklahoma Tornado Response (2024): MRC volunteers provided mental health support and tetanus vaccinations at Red Cross-led Multi-Agency Resource Centers, assisting more than 600 households in just two days.
• New Mexico Wildfire Response (2024): MRC members staffed Red Cross shelters during the South Fork wildfires, offering both medical and behavioral health support.
• Illinois Tornado Response (2024): The Lake County MRC Trauma Response Team provided bilingual crisis counseling to displaced residents sheltered by the Red Cross.

Beyond disaster response, local MRCs and Red Cross chapters routinely collaborate on blood drives, CPR training, and home fire prevention programs, extending their reach in everyday preparedness.

Integration into Local Response Systems

The MRC’s strength lies in its seamless integration with public health, emergency management, and healthcare systems. Volunteers act as trusted extensions of these systems, serving as force multipliers when demand exceeds capacity. They support:

• Alternative Care Sites during medical surges
• Sheltering Operations, both medical and non-medical
• Distribution of Needed Goods such as protective equipment, water, and meals
• Recovery Efforts, from health education to long-term community support
• Emergency Communications and information distribution
• Animal First Aid for pets affected by disasters

Many units even provide statewide or interstate support through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), demonstrating the network’s reach and flexibility.

National Support for Local Impact

Behind every local unit is the Office of the Medical Reserve Corps (OMRC), which provides coordination, training, and resources. For example, every year, the OMRC has every MRC unit complete a Technical Assistance Assessment to evaluate their capabilities and identify areas for growth. The OMRC uses these assessments to provide targeted training, volunteer management support, and deployment readiness planning. This process ensures units are better prepared to address local and regional needs, whether responding to disasters or supporting ongoing community health.

Key areas of OMRC support include:

• Capability Assessment: Helping units identify strengths and areas for improvement.
• Training and Education: Access to national training platforms, leadership development, and credentialing.
• Resource Development: Templates, toolkits, and risk analysis tools that make local operations more effective.
• Partnership Integration: Connecting units to federal and local partners for stronger collaboration.
• Storytelling and Data: Capturing and sharing impact stories to highlight MRC contributions.

This national infrastructure ensures that volunteers are not only ready but empowered to make a difference, ensuring state, local, tribal, and territorial partners have the support they need to build capacity, strengthen readiness, and face future challenges with confidence. Through targeted technical assistance, training, and the fostering of strong collaborations, the OMRC is ensures MRC units nationwide are positioned to serve as force multipliers in both preparedness and response.

Service as a Path to Preparedness and Healing

The MRC embodies the mission of the National Day of Service and Remembrance. By bringing together neighbors with diverse skills and a shared purpose, the MRC shows how service strengthens both individuals and communities. Their work directly aligns with national preparedness priorities, ensuring that local communities have the tools and people they need to face emergencies with confidence.

Whether staffing cooling centers during heatwaves, operating shelters in storms, or assisting at local health fairs, MRC volunteers demonstrate that service is not just a one-day act but a daily commitment to community resilience.

Honoring the Spirit of 9/11

On this National Day of Service, we honor the lives lost on September 11 by recognizing the everyday heroes who step forward in their communities. MRC volunteers epitomize the spirit of service, proving time and again that the strength of our nation lies in the dedication of its people.

The MRC is more than an emergency response system, it is a bridge between federal priorities and local action, between neighbors in need and neighbors who serve. On this day of remembrance, we thank the thousands of MRC volunteers who ensure our communities are safer, healthier, and stronger.

If you are inspired to serve, consider joining your local MRC unit. Together, we can honor the legacy of 9/11 by building resilience, one act of service at a time.

Every September, during National Preparedness Month, communities across the country are reminded to take steps to protect their families, friends, and neighbors in times of crisis. One group that prepares all year long is the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). With nearly 800 local units and close to 300,000 volunteers nationwide, the MRC recruits, trains, and activates medical and non-medical volunteers to respond when emergencies strike. But how do we make sure that this vast network of volunteers is always ready?

One critical way is through the administration of a Technical Assistance Assessment (TAA), which is conducted by a Regional Liaison in the Office of Medical Reserve Corps.

What is the Technical Assistance Assessment?

The Technical Assistance Assessment (TAA) is an annual, structured process during which each MRC unit works closely with its designated Office of the Medical Reserve Corps (OMRC) Regional Liaison to review the unit’s operations, strengths, and needs. Think of it as a comprehensive “checkup” for the unit. Just as a doctor’s visit helps you stay healthy, the TAA and discussion with the Regional Liaison help MRC units stay prepared, organized, and capable of serving their communities.

The assessment looks at everything from how well units recruit and train volunteers, to how they partner with local organizations, to how quickly they can mobilize during an emergency. It’s a chance to affirm what’s working and identify where extra support or resources are needed. And the TAA does not stop there—Regional Liaisons within the Office of Medical Reserve Corps equip MRC units with strategic guidance, risk-informed planning support, and access to cross-sector partnerships, all of which enable a wider range of community-based response and recovery activities.

Why It Matters

Preparedness is at the heart of the MRC mission. Emergencies like natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or public health crises don’t wait for us to get ready. MRC units ensure they are ready to respond by working with OMRC on these assessments.

Just a few of the areas the TAA explores:

• Volunteer readiness: Are volunteers recruited, screened, trained, and recognized for their contributions?
• Community partnerships: Does the unit have strong relationships with local health departments, local emergency management agencies, hospitals, schools, and nonprofits?
• Emergency response capability: How quickly can the unit mobilize? What specialized skills or teams do they have (like behavioral health, veterinary care, or epidemiology)?
• Sustainability: Does the unit have clear goals, solid leadership, and the resources to continue supporting the community in the long term?

By focusing on these areas, MRC units build resilience, with the support and technical assistance offered to them through the OMRC. They make sure that when the unexpected happens, there are trusted, trained neighbors ready to step up. And when a response is needed, the OMRC provides operational coordination before, during, and after public health emergencies, ensuring efforts are integrated across the Department of Health and Human Services, federal interagency partners, and SLTT stakeholders to ensure unity of effort.

Preparedness in Action

The TAA isn’t just about paperwork. It opens the door to real improvements. For example, a unit might discover that it needs more training in medical countermeasure dispensing or that it could better engage volunteers through social media. With that knowledge, the OMRC Regional Liaison provides or can help connect the unit with the necessary resources, such as training opportunities, new partners, or best practices from other MRC units across the country.

This process also creates accountability. Units regularly update their update their unit’s profile to include the number of volunteers, report participation in community events, and share successes with the larger MRC network. That means every unit, no matter how big or small, contributes to a stronger national system of preparedness.

The TAA also helps identify and organize MRC unit capabilities to inform key local community stakeholder groups/partners (e.g., local public health departments and emergency management agencies, hospitals, and other local health agencies).

What this means to you

The Technical Assistance Assessment may happen behind the scenes, but its impact is visible in every MRC response. Whether supporting distribution campaigns, assisting with shelter support after a storm, helping with grief counseling, or providing education at a community health fair, MRC volunteers are ready because their units have been trained, tested, and strengthened through this process.

So, as you and your family take time this National Preparedness Month to review your own plans, know that thousands of MRC units and volunteers are doing the same, making sure they’re ready to keep communities safe, healthy, and resilient when it matters most.

On July 8, 2025, flash floods overwhelmed The Village of Ruidoso, New Mexico, a scenic mountain town still scarred by both flooding and wildfires that tore through the region just a year earlier. As slow-moving storms dumped heavy rains on already fragile terrain, floodwaters surged through neighborhoods, trapping families in homes, cars, and trees. At least three people, including two children, lost their lives. Over 200 homes were damaged, and critical infrastructure — water systems, roadways, and communication lines — collapsed.

But amid the destruction, a coordinated and specialized response operation took shape.

The ASPR Center for Response Disaster Behavioral Health Program, with clinical support from the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHS), mobilized quickly, bringing with it a trauma-informed, community-centered approach to disaster response. The mission: to support the emotional and psychological well-being of survivors, frontline responders, and displaced families, an often overlooked but essential component of emergency response.

A Town Hit Hard

The Village of Ruidoso's vulnerability wasn’t just physical, it was systemic. Many residents, especially in low-income neighborhoods, didn’t have flood insurance. Their homes, already damaged by the 2024 wildfires and flooding, stood no chance against the torrent of water and debris. The floods displaced entire families and left the community grappling with food and housing insecurity and job loss.

The emotional toll was immense. Children were out of school and isolated. First responders, many of whom had served during last year’s wildfires and flooding, were stretched thin and emotionally taxed. Survivors in shelters were processing fresh trauma layered on top of previous disasters.

ASPR’s Behavioral Health Response

In the face of compounding crises, the ASPR behavioral health team activated five distinct lines of effort, making rapid, high-impact interventions:

1. Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) Support: Staff were embedded at the DRC, offering direct assistance, emotional support, and mental health resources to those seeking aid.
2. Youth-Focused Programming: Recognizing the need for structure and emotional care for displaced children, ASPR launched activities for kids ages 6 to 16 at the DRC, creating a safe space for play, learning, and healing.
3. Responder Mental Health: The team provided Force Health Protection to first responders and emergency personnel, helping them manage stress, grief, and burnout in real-time.
4. Hotel Outreach: With 183 survivors housed in non-congregate shelters, ASPR responders conducted outreach to provide psychosocial support and check on emerging needs.
5. Community Scans: ASPR teams conducted 20 neighborhood-level outreach efforts to identify individuals needing urgent referrals, distribute resources, and offer direct support.

In just five working days, the team had 139 documented behavioral health encounters, distributed over 140 resources (such as pamphlets of available resources and psychoeducation products in both English and Spanish), and sent 15 referrals to the state for additional mental health services. And to date:

• 34 community scans have been conducted to identify urgent needs
• Over 264 mental health resources have been distributed
• 158 direct encounters with survivors and responders have occurred
• 111 force health protection encounters with first responders, community members serving affected populations, and PHS officers have been completed
• 109 direct children encounters with affected children and youth have happened through the youth-based activity hub launched for children ages 6–16.

Mental Health Is Emergency Health

The response in The Village of Ruidoso highlights a a key fact of disaster recovery: mental health support is not a secondary concern, it’s a lifeline. Especially in small communities facing back-to-back disasters, behavioral health responders help stabilize not just individuals, but entire systems. Children who can play, caregivers who can breathe, and responders who feel supported are all signs of recovery taking root.

Looking Ahead

As The Village of Ruidoso continues to clean up and rebuild, the work of the ASPR Center for Response Disaster Behavioral Health Program stands as a model for integrated, compassionate crisis response. By prioritizing mental health alongside physical recovery, they’ve shown that healing begins not only with infrastructure, but with care, connection, and community.