When disaster hits, Elmhurst volunteer answers the call

By Susan Dibble

At 7 p.m. the day Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami, Elmhurst resident Mark Dyer received a call from ShelterBox International headquarters in Cornwall, England.

Dyer, a ShelterBox volunteer, was asked to do what he could to expedite sending lifesaving equipment to the disaster victims. Knowing time was of the essence, he immediately began working the contacts he had made through the Rotary Club of Elmhurst. With the help of fellow Rotary member Daniel Kunesh and Rotary District 6450 Governor Robb Kneupfer, he was able to locate Rotarians in Tokyo who could serve as consignees to receive the shipments.

By 11 p.m., 200 boxes containing tents, blankets, stoves and other survival tools were ready to send.

“What he’s done is amazing,” said Lee Strouse, a member of the Elmhurst Rotary, who does publicity for ShelterBox, a disaster relief charity supported by Rotary clubs around the world.

Dyer himself joined ShelterBox’s response team in Japan this week. Since joining ShelterBox a little over two years ago, he’s already been deployed to disasters in Somaliland, Niger, Haiti and Colombia.

“You’re changing lives. In some cases, you’re saving lives. You see it. You know it,” he said. “It’s changed my life in so many ways.”

Locally, Dyer speaks to civic groups, churches, youth groups, Rotary clubs and anyone who will listen about the organization whose mission is to provide shelter and survival equipment to those whose lives are turned upside down by natural and man-made disasters.

The typical response to his talks is “This is amazing. I get it. How come I have never heard of you?” Dyer said.

Able and willing

Dyer had never heard of ShelterBox himself until he joined Elmhurst Rotary four years ago. He immediately became an active member and read about ShelterBox in a Rotary publication.

Founded by Rotarian Tom Henderson in the United Kingdom in 2000, ShelterBox is separate from the Rotary but maintains strong ties with the service club organization. The Elmhurst Rotary alone has contributed $50,000 to ShelterBox over the last two years, and the 66 member clubs of Rotary District 6450 raised more than $100,000 in 2009-10, Strouse said.

The fact that Dyer is a ShelterBox volunteer and speaks frequently of his experiences at Rotary Club meetings has increased members’ generosity, Strouse said.

“He’s extremely dedicated. He’s very able. He’s a good communicator,” he said.

Dyer, who now does small business consulting, had sold his advertising agency and manufacturing company when he joined Rotary and was looking for a way to volunteer. An outdoorsman and former Eagle Scout, he had long been active in Troop 82 in Elmhurst where he had served as High Adventure Leader.

ShelterBox fit his experience and his interests, he said.

“There are a lot of fabulous charities out there, but this was affecting people — something out of their control,” he said.

Dyer spent a year going through ShelterBox’s application and training process, which included a nine-day camp in Cornwall, England. Volunteers must have the physical stamina and skills to adapt to a wide range of conditions, he said.

“Potentially, we’re going into some of the worst parts of the world in the absolute worst conditions,” he said. “You have to be totally self-sufficient. We go in with a backpack, ready to live out of that if needed.”

But more than physical stamina is required. Before distributing aid, volunteers may assess needs; negotiate with in-country governmental, military and custom officials; and charter transportation.

“We’ve moved stuff in on boats, helicopters, trucks, mules,” Dyer said. “Every deployment is so different.”

Response teams are international in makeup and consist of two to four members. Dyer is one of only 30 response team members in the United States and 155 worldwide.

They are deployed for two to six weeks at a time in places that have included Third World countries, developed nations and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

“We have no political affiliation. We have no religious affiliation. We have no government funding. We can operate anywhere in the world,” Dyer said.

The aid the volunteers distribute comes in green ShelterBoxes that each include a durable tent and lifesaving tools such as water purification supplies, blankets, a cook stove, mosquito nets or whatever other equipment the situation requires.

Disaster deployments

Dyer’s deployments so far have taken to him to areas devastated by floods, earthquakes and political turmoil. His first deployment was to Somaliland, Africa, where war refugees from Southern Sudan had fled north.

“People had nothing, no shelter, no infrastructure. They were literally sitting down in the desert,” he said.

ShelterBox set up tents, and distributed equipment to schools, hospitals and an orphanage in an area that had little functioning government and no aid organizations to help.

Dyer’s next deployment in Niger, West Africa, was to a different kind of crisis. In the Sahara Desert where normally less than 1 inch of rain falls a year, the city of Agadez was hit by flash floods from the mountains. One third of the city’s 90,000 residents were homeless.

“Average daytime temperatures were around 130 degrees,” Dyer said. “For a guy from the Midwest in February, it was quite a climate change.”

The day after Haiti suffered a massive earthquake in January 2010, Dyer was sent to Miami as part of a logistics team to assemble aid coming in and charter planes to fly to Haiti as soon as the airport reopened in Port-au-Prince. They assembled 190,000 pounds of equipment, Dyer said.

Several weeks later in March, he was sent to Haiti to help with distribution of aid. The biggest challenge was getting up into the mountain areas before the spring rainy season made the roads impassable, he said.

Some disasters like Haiti are epic in size and widely reported, but more localized catastrophes that may receive less notice in the media can be just as devastating to the victims, Dyer said.

“The scale is irrelevant,” he said.

This past year on the day after Thanksgiving, Dyer was deployed to Colombia to help assess the needs after the country was hit by massive flooding. He flew over expansive areas where only the tops of trees could be seen.

“The biggest problem, there was so much water, was finding dry land where we could relocate people,” he said.

He and another ShelterBox volunteer were asked by the Colombian president to address the cabinet about what they had seen.

“The Colombian government was extremely cooperative,” he said.

In between disasters, Dyer and his son, Eric, then 17, joined 10 other ShelterBox volunteers last summer to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The climb marked ShelterBox’s 10th anniversary and raised more than $20,000 for disaster relief. The 19,400-foot ascent took seven days, he said.

The only two Americans in the group, Dyer and his son had backpacked and hiked, but mountain climbing was a new experience, he said.

“It’s the highest free-standing mountain in the world,” he said. “It was very hard, but you didn’t need mountaineering experience to do it.”

While in Tanzania, the ShelterBox volunteers also worked with a local school to provide students with textbooks and supplies, and to order new English and math textbooks for the school.

More to do

Dyer recently received a Presidential Volunteer Service Award for his work with ShelterBox. The award was presented to him by Rep. Peter Roskam on behalf of President Obama.

His own satisfaction lies with the one-on-one help he is able to give families, he said. He added that the downside is that some must be turned away.

“We can never help everyone,” Dyer said. “We always try to help the most needy first.”

Knowing that many more people need help drives him to want to spread the word about ShelterBox to as many as he can, Dyer said. Groups can sponsor a box for $1,000 and track exactly where it goes, he said.

He works with Boy Scouts on a national and local level to spread awareness. Boy Scouts of America recently signed a memorandum of understanding expressing support for ShelterBox’s work. More locally, Three Fires Council will host its first “ShelterBox and Global Emergency Disaster Relief” themed Camporall in October. A public fundraising walk will be held in Libertyville in June.

Emily Sperling, executive director of ShelterBox USA, said Dyer’s work on behalf of the organization is tireless.

“Mark is a 24/7 supporter of ShelterBox,” she said. “He’s incredibly energetic, strategic and has excellent people skills.”

Dyer continues to receive strong support from fellow members of the Elmhurst Rotary Club. The club has chosen ShelterBox along with the Northern Illinois Food Bank as the beneficiaries of its annual dinner dance and auction fundraiser at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 30, at the Butterfield County Club, 2800 Midwest Club, Oak Brook.

For information on ShelterBox, visit shelterboxusa.org.

If you go

What: Elmhurst Rotary Club dinner-dance fundraiser to benefit ShelterBox and Northern Illinois Food Bank

When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 30

Where: Butterfield Country Club, 2800 Midwest Road, Oak Brook

Info: elmhurstrotary.org