Join Our Founding First Responder Advisory Board 

Help Build the Future of First Responder Support

Join Our Founding First Responder Advisory Board

Who Are We:

We're Responder Relief Fund (RRF), a brand-new nonprofit with a big mission: To create the most effective, no-red-tape support system for first responders in crisis during natural disasters. Right now, we're just getting started, and that's where you come in.

As a firefighter, EMT, police officer, or disaster responder, medical provider, you know better than anyone what kind of help makes a difference. That's why we're assembling our very first, First Responder Advisory Board, to make sure we build this organization *the right way* from day one.

Your Mission (Should You Choose to Accept It):

We're not looking for rubber-stamp advisors. We need real-world heroes to roll up their sleeves and help us:

🔧 Design Our Core Programs

• What kind of financial aid would help after a disaster?
• How should mental health support really work for busy crews and families?
• What equipment gaps aren't being filled?

🗺️ Shape Our Roadmap

• Help prioritize what we tackle first (and what can wait)
• Spot problems before they become crises
• Keep us focused on real needs vs. what looks good on paper

📢 Be Our Truth Tellers

• Call us out if we're missing the mark
• Connect with others who should be at the table
• Share what you're hearing in the field right now
• -

Who We Need:

✔ Active or retired first responders (5+ years’ experience preferred)

✔ People who aren't afraid to speak up (no sugarcoating needed)

✔ Team players are willing to brainstorm with other responders

✔ Those who can spare ~4 hours/quarter (mostly Zoom meetings)

No nonprofit experience required—we need your frontline knowledge, not your fundraising skills.

Why Join our Startup Nonprofit?

✨ Build Something Meaningful – Put your stamp on an organization from the ground up

✨ Direct Impact – See your ideas become real programs that help your brothers and sisters

✨ Flexible Commitment – We know you're busy saving lives—we'll work around your schedule

✨ Be Heard – No bureaucracy, no politics—just real talk about real solutions

Ready to Build with Us?

Respond to this posting with:

1. Your name and agency/background
2. One thing you wish existed to help first responders like you
3. Your favorite way to take a break after a tough shift (coffee? fishing? gym?)

We'll schedule a casual chat to see if it's a good fit—no pressure, no formal interview.

This is our chance to create the support system first responders *actually want.* Will you help us build it?

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

This isn't just another committee seat—it's a chance to rewrite the rules of responder support.

• My "Why" for founding Responder Relief Fund

I want to share something with you that has lived in my bones for over 30 years—a memory that refuses to fade.

In 1992, I was 26 years old, running my landscape business with the invincibility of youth. One of my employees had a father who owned a major construction company. When Hurricane Andrew ravaged Florida, he was invited to bid on rebuilding Homestead. He gathered subcontractors—including a wide-eyed kid like me—and flew us down on his private jet.

What I saw from the air stole my breath.

Miles and miles of nothing. Neighborhoods reduced to splinters. Schools, churches, homes—all flattened like a child’s block tower kicked over. The silence was the worst part. No birds, no laughter, just the hollow wind through broken beams. We landed in a warzone without bullets.

His company never got the contracts. But that flight home? I stared out the window at the ruins below, and something in me cracked open. A question started burning: Who helps the helpers when the unthinkable happens?

For three decades, that question followed me like a shadow. Through careers and life’s twists, I’d wake sometimes to the smell of wet lumber and chaos—that Florida air thick with loss.

Now, at this chapter of my life, I’m done waiting. Responder Relief Fund Corp isn’t just a nonprofit. It’s the answer I wish had existed when first responders dug through those ruins in ’92 with bleeding hands. It’s the promise that no firefighter, no EMT, no officer who runs toward disaster will ever face the aftermath alone.

I’m sharing this because I need you to feel why this matters. Not just understand it but carry it with you the way I still carry Homestead. If that resonates—if you too hear the echo of forgotten heroes in the wind—then let’s talk. Really talk. Not about spreadsheets or strategies, but about how we can build something that outlasts us both.

The jet landed long ago. But the journey? It’s just beginning.

• With urgency and hope,
• Brian H. Myers

Founder, Responder Relief Fund Corp

• P.S. When you’re ready, I’ll tell you about the firefighter I met in Homestead who’d lost his own home but still wore his uniform. That’s who we’re doing this for.