The Kerrville Sunrise Lions Club has had a few busy months to end 2025 and start 2026.

Following the July 4th flood our club was boots to the ground, starting July 7th with flood relief clean up efforts, we held an unplanned meeting and found we all agreed that we needed to work together to help families impacted by the floods. Starting with distribution of our flood relief surveys in areas hard hit, including Hunt, Ingram and Kerrville. We have established the Kerrville Sunrise Lions Foundation, (July 27th) and obtained 501c3 status to assist with applications for grant monies from various sources whom have received funding since the floods.

To date, we have independently fundraised through private donations $130,000. We have applied to the Community Foundation of Hill Country, which received much of the monies for the Hill Country in the height of the flood. We also have applied to the Kerrville Host Lions Club Foundation, which received Lion monies

Since that day, we have received 80 survey responses. Plus, we have hosted 30+ shopping days to various local stores including Belk, Gibson’s, Walmart, Tractor Supply and Home Depot offering flood impacted families items that they need to assist with rebuilding at that particular time, from anything like clothing, shoes, towels, bedding, luggage bags, dry wall, boots, belts, to kitchen appliances, water heaters and various repair tools. Of the $130,000 collected, we have spent over $115,000 immediately giving back to the families directly impacted.

In October we received an in kind donation of bedding and linens from Seidel Schroeder from Brenham Texas and held one of three linen distribution days to our flood relief families. In this day and future days families were provided with bedding, kitchen towels, bath towels and throw blankets.

In November we received a VERY generous donation out of Georgetown, Texas, Poppy Quilt and Sew, over 50 made quilts, we have even received a few quilts hand sewn instead of machine sewn (the amount of time to complete a project like this is unfathomable), allowing our flood relief families to each receive one quilt. In November we also hosted a hamburger cook out for any families or volunteers located in Hunt, TX for free to provide support in their recovery and rebuilding efforts. We served a total of 150 burgers on this day.

During the month of December, the Kerrville Sunrise Lions Foundation hosted our largest shopping trip day to the Home Depot of Kerrville, having 25+ families shop for building supplies and materials needed to help with rebuilding. This event was successfully supported by $20,000 in grant monies we received from the Kerrville Host Lions Foundation from the funds they received immediately following the floods from Lions throughout the country and the world. We did just recently provide documentation of the use of our grant monies and made an additional request for additional funding to be able to further assist families in need with rebuilding.

The Kerrville Sunrise Lions Club also hosts a “Christmas for Kerr Kids” shopping trip at Walmart in which we locate and identify 20 families in need for necessities for their young children (1 and under) and provide with a shopping trip spending up to $200.00 per family on diapers, clothing, and formula. Due to the flood impacted families this year, we increased our families to 25, spending $5000.00 on this project. We also partnered with Paperclip out of Austin Texas, which requested for us to provide additional monetary assistance to 4 flood impacted families (with children). They donated $2800.00 to provide 4 of our flood impacted families with up to $700.00 each to shop for items for their children/family needed to celebrate Christmas.

We started off the new year with bang, hosting 10 families at another large shopping day at the Home Depot of Kerrville providing additional rebuilding supplies and materials. With monies running low in our efforts to help families, we only had one more shopping day at Home Depot for in January. For February, we have approximately 15 families, who still have remaining funds (out of the $2000.00/family) available to use in future planned shopping days at Walmart, Gibson’s and Belk. .

We have just recently received 4 more applications for assistance (the end of January), and because of limited funds are unable to assist them at this time. We would like to be able to provide these new families with resources that previous families have utilized these past months, especially as many of the families requesting help are under insured and are receiving limited assistance from other outside resources.

In March, we again hosted a hamburger cookout in Hunt Texas, serving just over 100 burgers (free of cost) to those working in the Hunt/Ingram area.

We have a handful of families who have been able to make it back into their homes, some just prior to Christmas, some just shortly after the new year. Some families have yet to start building due to the extent of the damage to their home, building restrictions or construction work delays. Many families in our community will continue to need various amounts of assistance for at least the next year as they continue to rebuild and recover. Recovery is a slow process, but the support of those within our community and those of you who have come alongside have made us stronger. Thank you.

If you would like to join us by providing future monetary assistance to our organization, donations can be sent to Kerrville Sunrise Lions Foundation, PO BOX 290508, Kerrville TX 78029