Emergency Volunteers

Learn how you can volunteer during public health emergencies.

Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) 

The MRC is community-based way to organize and utilize volunteers. They donate their time by preparing for and responding to emergencies and by promoting healthy living. MRC volunteers include:

  • dentists
  • epidemiologists
  • nurses
  • pharmacists
  • physicians
  • veterinarians

Interpreters, chaplains, office workers, legal advisors and others can also fill support positions.

MRC volunteers support local public health, while advancing the priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General. This includes:

  • Promoting disease prevention.
  • Improving health literacy.
  • Eliminating health disparities. 
  • Enhancing public health preparedness. 
  • Assisting local hospitals and health departments with surge personnel needs.
  • Participating in mass prophylaxis, vaccination exercises and community disaster drills.
  • Training with local emergency response partners.

MRC benefits the community by:

  • Bolstering public health and emergency response infrastructures by providing supplemental personnel.
  • Enabling communities to meet specific health needs. 
  • Allowing local communities more autonomy, less reliance on state and national resources.
  • Giving community members the opportunity to participate in developing strategies to make their communities healthier and safer. 
  • Providing mechanisms for information sharing and coordination between all partner organizations. 
  • Providing a dialogue between emergency management and public health agencies.

Medical Volunteer Coordinating Committee (MVCC)

The MVCC is a partnership between Metro Health, Department of State Health Services Region 8 and medical staffing agencies. They provide a local network of medical and mental health volunteers available to respond to all hazardous public health emergencies.

All federal, state, tribal, and local entities, private sector and non-governmental personnel with a direct role in emergency management and response must be National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command Structure (ICS) trained. This includes all emergency services related disciplines such as: 

  • emergency medical services (EMS)
  • fire service
  • hospitals
  • law enforcement
  • public health
  • public works/utilities
  • skilled support personnel and other emergency management response
  • support and volunteer personnel for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Texas Disaster Volunteer Registry

The Texas Volunteer Registry is an Emergency System for Advanced Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals used to pre-register, manage and mobilize clinical and non-clinical volunteers to respond to all types of disasters. The volunteer management system is part of a nation-wide effort to make sure that volunteer professionals can be quickly identified, and their credentials checked, so that they can be properly utilized in response to a public health emergency or disaster.

Texas Volunteer Registry

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