CAJUN NAVY GROUND FORCE SWIFT INTERVENTION PROGRAMS
Over the years of response, we began to see an inherent structure, a natural alignment between our success and our work. Certain endeavors greatly increased our efficiency, aiding our broader initiatives to cultivate a pipeline of volunteers and donations. In order to convey our work efficiently, we transformed these verticals into our FIVE central programs each of which are outlined in detail below.
The programs work together to deliver swift, sustainable assistance and achieve incredible amounts of fast relief after a disaster.
Cajun Navy Ground Force’s five swift intervention programs.
- Safe Camp – A safe place in a disaster zone.
- Community Caretaking – In home visits to care for the most vulnerable community members with a countless creative range of services.
- Data-Driven Remote Team – Manages our deployment operations remotely.
- Visual Storytelling – Keeps the disaster narrative alive.
- Swift Intervention Training – We train groups or individual volunteers to be ready for the next deployment.
Each program is created to empower new levels of collaboration between citizen volunteers, corporations, government, emergency managers and local community partners.
These programs are crafted with the goal of fostering teamwork among multiple disaster response entities.
- American citizens and spontaneous volunteers are the backbone of our efforts. We are a pipeline that empowers citizens to take action and our programs allow them to work with us to safely deliver direct relief work based on their own capabilities.
- Corporate partners are matched where they best fit to provide in-kind services that are delivered right where and when they are needed.
- Emergency managers and other officials have visibility and can send work item requests that can be accomplished within the appropriate program.
- The press has controlled access to strong accurate stories that keep the narrative alive longer.
- Our varied and numerous nonprofit partners have a safe place to work side by side, preventing duplication and enabling collaboration in real time around common goals.
Together, these programs, when applied collaboratively into distressed areas, are designed to become a community’s safety-net, a badly needed imported network of support for socially isolated and vulnerable individuals. Our programs easily scale when called for and can deliver a massive amount of relief and can be scaled back when no longer needed. Scroll down to learn about each program in detail.
North Fort Myers Hurricane Ian SAFE Camp, Late September - Mid December 2022
1) SAFE Camp
(Swift Action Force Emergency Camp)
When communities lose electricity and water and gas stations and it’s grocery stores are closed SAFE Camp becomes a supplemental location to provide much needed supplies and human related services. It’s safe place for victims and volunteers alike. 
Madison Florida, $800,000 in in-kind donations from our corporate sponsors were distributed by SAFE Camp Certified volunteers. We setup SAFE Camp as a highly visible relief presence as soon as possible to provide a safe base where volunteers, victims and all disaster relief nonprofits can collaborate to deliver much needed services to the community. It’s a consistent recognizable place of hope, shining positivity and security for the vulnerable in the midst of massive destruction. The letters stand for Swift Action Force Emergency Camp. It’s a citizen styled MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital). SAFE Camp teams are first in and quickly deploy generators, equipment, tents, RV’s, cook trailers and mobile command centers into a large parking lot in an impacted community. We establish a car line for distribution and safe traffic, gather data on the urgent needs of the community, provide a huge range of human services, distribute supplies, provide hot meals, access to the internet and ATM machines.
- Funded by two $50,000 Walmart Foundation grants.
- Employs our ‘Bigs to Bags’ method for distributing in-kind donations provide by corporate SAFE Camp sponsors. Bigs to Bags is easily learned by volunteers and puts distribution on efficient steroids.
- Click here to become a SAFE Camp corporate sponsor.
- 6 SAFE Camp deployments to date. Lake Charles Louisiana, Houma Louisiana, Letcher County Kentucky, Fort Myers Florida, Rolling Fork Mississippi and Madison Florida.
- 25k vehicles serviced to date.
SAFE Camp in Rolling Fork. A highly visible location of hope.
Certified volunteers who come alone and in groups work through SAFE Camp.
SAFE Camp is a morning gathering place for teams headed into the community.
Thousands of cars receive free supplies from volunteers after Hurricane Ian.
SAFE Camp at the parking lot at North Florida College in Madison in 2023. Certified Volunteers do incredible work right from a parking lot.
Our first generation SAFE Camp for Hurricane Ida relief in Houma in 2021 as a drone video.
Animated video of how SAFE Camp works in conjunction with our corporate sponsors in a Walmart parking lot.
2. Community Caretaking
Community Caretaking provides a countless creative range of services. Community Caretakers are mobile teams going to homes to cover the entire spectrum of needs for a disaster including clean-up efforts, providing medical and mental health care, recovering possessions, reorganizing homes, re-establishing routines, delivering supplies, food and even mail to elderly, disabled or other special needs mobility challenged persons. The Z.I.P. Insights program provides an easy instant evaluation of living conditions and what it will take to make the home ready for shelter in place with other insights on how to best help this person with recovery. Our Community Caretakers are nimble and trained to work in multiple areas of response including cooking, refueling generators for the elderly, cleaning and tarping, tree and debris removal, running errands, documenting issues, and much more ensuring we can leverage our finite resources as effectively and as efficiently as possible.
- 10 AmeriCorps NCCC teams have already been deployed as Community Caretakers.
- Community Caretaking can last for months or even years as needs persist.
- Works with our Z.I.P. program to quickly evaluate a home for shelter in place.
Trained Medics and Mental Health Professionals Are Deployed with Our Teams
Volunteers in Boulder Colorado in 2022 after the Marshall fire burned down 1000 homes 3 days after Christmas.
Camille and Sarah Repair an Animal Farm in Maui after Wildfires.
The team ash sifting in the basement of burned out homes.
Cajun Navy Ground Force Community Caretakers have been working in Kentucky for past year and a half after July 2022 Flooding.
Certified Community Caretakers perform a countless creative range of services.
Certified Community Caretakers Perform a Countless Creative Range of Help
A Certified Community Caretaking crew cleans a lumber yard in Rolling Fork Mississippi.
Most Recently We Provided a Generator to Run A Heater
We served 18,000 cars in 18 days with meals in 2020 after Hurricane Laura
3. Data-Driven Remote Team
Data-Driven Remote Teams provide oversight to the ground team’s efforts. Remote teams utilize our custom developed platforms to monitor and communicate with our core team members. They ensure our teams are tracing every single volunteer and donation so they can be applied to the appropriate category match for Public Assistance grant reimbursements. Remote teams engage spontaneous volunteers and community members and efficiently direct their resources. For larger corporate in-kind deliveries remote team members manage the logistics of item delivery. They monitor Community Caretaking teams movements through the community so work is performed safely. Remote team also communicates with community partners, manages team communications via our Zello Walkie Talkie App, provides oversight of incoming volunteers, offers insights about the region’s emergency management personnel, helps to coordinate press interviews, provides weather and news updates and much more.
- We desire to save states and counties money that can be used for community relief. To do this, we put every single resource to best use by developing a culture that tracks every penny, every drop of water and every morsel.
- Every single dollar needs to be captured to bring benefit to impacted communities. In order to achieve this, every volunteer’s time, every corporate donation and every space donated is tracked.
- We turn the key relevant metrics over to Emergency Managers who can apply the dollar value captured to the required match required to receive Public Assistance grants.
- We’ve developed our own custom software platform for team oversight.
- Remote teams can work remotely or from the SAFE Camp Command Center.
Certified Data-Driven Remote Team professionals are efficiency experts.
After Hurricane Ida, SAFE Camp in Walmarts parking lot in Houma become an enormous logistics supply hub.
4. Visual Storytelling
Visual Storytelling teams leverage social media and broad information-based communications to help keep community profiles, needs, and progress alive and relevant, both within the community and with the rest of the world. Regular media tends to cover disasters as they approach and ultimately occur, then abandon the story once the disaster is over. CNGF’s Visual Storytelling program ensures recovery efforts and community needs stay in the news, as a powerful means of encouraging ongoing help and financial assistance, outside of the disaster zone. We leverage the 250,000 and growing followers on the CNGF social platforms for financial donations and to highlight our response.
- Millions of citizens reached through our social media platform is the key to our success.
- 180,000 On Facebook Page & 60,000 In Facebook Group (As Of Jan 2024)
- Over 1000 LIVE videos.
Training a New Generation on How To Tell Stories using Their Social Networks
We HEART Thomas. Good Man with a Big Spoon and Even Bigger Heart
TikTok Tony Keeps the Kids Happy
Go Pros, Drones and Other Camera Equipment Are Vital our Success
Our Kentucky Krewe Took a Minute to Smile with Lisa!
Matthew 0'Dower is a Great Storyteller
We HEART Hopscotch Dave
5. Swift Intervention Training
Become Cajun Navy Ground Force Certified in each of our five Swift Intervention Training programs. Certification prepares team members and volunteers to join our Ground Force Crisis Team as a core deployed volunteer in one of our FIVE disaster relief programs listed on this page. You can decide to train for one program or for all of them, but we recommend choosing the program where you best fit.
Our focus is on preparing for year-round readiness and we currently only provide training sessions when our staff and volunteers are not deployed. As you would expect training results in dramatically increased operational efficiencies, improved volunteer retention and a feeling of community when you deploy to a disaster scene with us.
Our ability to stay trained allows us to deploy quickly with team members who know exactly what to do provide the right resources at the right time. This is critical to helping as quickly and safely as possible.
We hold yearly SAFE Camp simulations that we would love to have you attend once you’re Cajun Navy Ground Force Certification is in place.
Training classes are scheduled regularly when we are not deployed and can take place either at your groups location, in our office in Baton Rouge, Louisiana or at our facility located in Scott, Louisiana.
If you or your group is interested in taking a Swift Intervention Training class, you can email us at Training@GoCajunNavy.org.
Teams getting training before going into the field at SAFE Camp on Pine Island.
