By Jill Scott, Manager of Member Services
By now you know all about our Mastermind Groups and how they work, but this isn’t a blog post to promote the groups or why you should consider joining one. This is a post about the comradery of mastermind members and also the story of how one of our members fared during and after Hurricane Harvey.
After seeing the devastation of those in Hurricane Harvey’s path, a number of members of the Top 10% group emailed me to see if we had heard from Milton. So, after the storm, I checked in with them and here is their Hurricane Harvey story:
Thank you Jill. It’s been an extraordinary week full of heartbreak and incredibly uplifting stories of people help others. Our home was not flooded, however my son and his family had a harrowing experience being rescued from their home by boat from a second story window. They are safe and living with us.
Our office remained dry and the server kept running throughout the ordeal. We were able to conduct payroll remotely and thanks to direct deposit the vast majority of our caregivers were able to access funds from their account on Tuesday. Caregiver stories range from being evacuated from their homes to a shelter, to the loss of their cars (a half million vehicles under water), to riding out the hurricane with their clients, to calling in offering to fill any shift we needed them for. The office staff worked around the clock for several days using laptops and cell phones to coordinate the needs of clients and caregivers. Marilou & I are very proud of Encore’s office staff and caregivers, they stepped up big time!
Harvey has left many thousands of Houstonians in a very bad way and they will be for some time to come. Encore fared better than I expected and while we have temporarily lost a third of our business, we consider ourselves very fortunate. I know I speak for many here in Houston when I say that we are highly touched and very grateful for the out pouring of love and support flowing into our city from around the Nation.
It’s amazing to witness the Texas spirit and “can do” attitude of Houstonians as the city springs back to life.
Needless to say, we are so grateful that Milton, his family and his company are getting through the aftermath of the storm. The craziest part is that now another member of the same group is preparing for Hurricane Irma as it barrels down on Florida, but because of their relationship from the mastermind group Jonathan was able to get some hurricane survival guidance from Milton.
Now, we’ll be adding emergency preparedness to our agenda for one of our upcoming calls and we’ll also do a follow-up blog post with some hurricane preparedness lessons and possibly lessons from companies that are experiencing the forest fires out west.
Keep praying for those recovering for Hurricane Harvey, for those experiencing forest fires, and those that are preparing for landfall of Hurricane Irma in Florida! And to any of the companies experiencing any of these natural disasters, please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you!
