With Houston, Beaumont and areas stretching down to Corpus Christi having suffered incredible devastation from Hurricane Harvey our thoughts and prayers have been with everyone in the affected areas and will continue to be for the months to come as they embark on a lengthy recovery process.
While our communities fared well overall, there are numerous Venterra employees whose personal lives have been affected and our thoughts go out to them as they work to recover from this devastating storm. Very fortunately, all of our employees are safe, but some will face significant challenges in the wake of this storm, and numerous Venterra team members expressed a desire to help.
To support this interest, we set up an online fundraising account directing funds to more than a dozen Venterra employees who have had their personal lives significantly impacted by the hurricane. Venterra matched all donations through the site from Venterra employees five to one. A HUGE thank you goes out to everyone inside and outside of the Venterra Family who helped contribute to this cause!
We would like to take a moment to recognize and thank the amazing efforts that were made by Venterra employees to assist residents, co-workers and neighbors during this time. In many cases those employees living at or close to a property took it upon themselves to assist those in need at Venterra communities. We had many employees working late into the night to prevent flooding, traveling to properties during the storm to clear clogged drains, and helping to evacuate residents from flooding units. We saw teams gather and transport supplies to the Houston region and saw WOW stories from teams going above and beyond for new residents who had been forced to leave their homes.
In addition, numerous employees were providing updates into our “command center” to provide eyes on the ground so we could coordinate necessary actions. In a way, it’s not surprising, given the quality of our people, but we still have incredible respect and appreciation for these acts of kindness and the efforts to look out for our communities.
It is times like this that we get to find out what we are made off as individuals, and as a company of people. Harvey is an unprecedented disaster in the history of the U.S., and in the history of our company. We are very proud of the response of all our employees in the regions affected.