Save the Children Helping Kids and Families in the Carolinas Displaced by Hurricane Florence

Emergency Response Team Delivering Essential Child-Focused Supplies, Setting up Safe Play Spaces for Children in Shelters

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — As Hurricane Florence batters the coast of the Carolinas, generating life-threatening floodwaters and damaging winds, Save the Children is on the ground in North Carolina supporting the immediate needs of children and families displaced by the storm.

Save the Children’s emergency response team is positioned in the Raleigh-Durham area, delivering essential child-focused supplies for displaced children and families in evacuation shelters – including hygiene kits, portable cribs, baby wipes, toys and children’s activities – and setting up safe play spaces in shelters where children can play, learn and cope. The emergency response team is also working with national and local partners to assess children’s urgent needs in response to Hurricane Florence.

“Thousands of children have been taken from the lives they knew, and they have no idea what the future may hold," said Sarah Thompson, Save the Children’s director for U.S. emergencies. “Loss and displacement during disasters can affect children for years to come, and it’s critical we offer kids a chance to be kids again as soon as possible – as well as providing them and their families the essentials they need during this difficult time.”

At one Wake County evacuation shelter, young mom Flor – who brought her children to a safe play space set up by Save the Children – said it was a relief to have a place where her kids could keep their minds off the storm, to play with toys, draw and make arts and crafts. Her family doesn’t live far from the shelter, but their home is near a river she fears will swell with Hurricane Florence’s heavy rains, threatening their neighbourhood.

As the national leader for children in emergencies, Save the Children deployed emergency response teams in response to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in the earliest days of those unprecedented 2017 disasters. Save the Children emergency response teams set up child friendly spaces in evacuation shelters and coordinated emergency distributions of child-centric materials, and continue to play a leading role in getting children back to learning and supporting children’s social and emotional recovery.

Save the Children also responded to Hurricane Matthew in the Carolinas in 2016, helping children, families and early learning centers recover, and has been operating its signature early learning and elementary school age education programs in South Carolina since 2003.

To learn more about Save the Children’s response to Hurricane Florence and how to help, please go to www.SavetheChildren.org/hurricane-florence

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.

Note to Editors:

Sarah Thompson, who is helping lead Save the Children’s Hurricane Florence response – and has responded to numerous U.S. emergencies in the past 8 years, including Hurricane Sandy, the Oklahoma tornadoes and the 2017 hurricanes, is available for media interviews. Please contact Jeremy Soulliere at jsoulliere@savechildren.org or (203) 295-5842, to set up an interview.