For over 100 years, our Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services (EDS) teams serve whenever there is hardship, natural or manmade disasters, or other emergency situations. We are there to assist those affected by the emergency and the first responders. Our assistance is long-term – through the critical disaster phase to recovery, and long after, helping to rebuild lives.
Comprised of officers, employees, and volunteers, our EDS teams are often the first support service to arrive at a disaster and the last to leave. Teams are well-trained in various aspects of response and recovery through participation in our National Disaster Training Program. This program, used by The Salvation Army across Canada and the United States, provides structured and consistent training, allowing our teams to serve across North America as the need demands.
The Salvation Army‘s disaster services focus on five key areas of support:
- Food and water
- Emotional and spiritual care
- Emergency communications
- Donations management
- Financial assistance
This may include providing meals, food prep, shelter, clothing, drivers, chaplaincy, Crisis Intervention Stress Management (CISM), finance & administration, warehousing, communications, and planning.
The Salvation Army provides many forms of assistance in an attempt to meet the needs of people in crisis – spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual.
We believe that everyone is entitled to receive assistance with respect and dignity.
We believe that with your help, we can continue to serve in our ministries to meet the challenges of individuals and families in crisis.
Whether it’s a 3 a.m. house fire or a mass flood across many municipalities, The Salvation Army is ready and able to respond right here in our collective backyard or anywhere needed – even if the affected area does not have an existing Salvation Army presence. Past large-scale responses within the Alberta & Northern Territories Division include the 2011 Slave lake wildfire, the 2013 Southern Alberta floods, and the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire.
To further meet the response demand, we have been upgrading our fleet of mobile kitchens called Community Resource Units (CRUs), or canteens. Our fleet of nine CRUs will be stationed in key centres across our Division.
The Army’s established and well-rehearsed emergency protocols allow our organization to deliver fast, efficient service to first responders and disaster survivors across the country. Each division has a team of trained personnel ready to respond in their area, but because they all undergo the same training program, we can quickly upscale our human resources by calling on personnel from other locations. Mutal aid agreements between the divisions also allow us to deploy mobile kitchens across provincial borders to increase capacity as needed.
To learn more about our disaster response services across our Canada and Bermuda Territory, visit: SalvationArmy.ca/eds
Specially trained personnel from across the globe are available to assist with disaster response around the world. To see where The Salvation Army is currently mobilized, visit: SalvationArmy.org/ihq/emergency
Donate: By phone 24/7 at 1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769) for disaster events, regular donations, or memorial donations. During regular business hours, you can contact Divisional Headquarters at 780-423-2111 or our Calgary office at 403-410-1112.
Make an online donation at SalvationArmy.ca/donations and print off your receipt immediately.
Volunteer: The Salvation Army has developed a National Disaster Training Program (NDTP), a very detailed emergency response training program whereby volunteers are trained in every aspect of Salvation Army emergency response. Only pre-trained, pre-registered volunteers are called on during an emergency or disaster response. To inquire further about volunteering with EDS, please visit our website: SalvationArmy.ca/volunteer
