Thrive Market Sends Help to Houston—Everything We’re Doing, Plus How You Can Get Involved

While many of us spent Labor Day weekend marking the last days of summer with friends and family, six million Americans endured more than 30 inches of rain as Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast.

The storm set historic records for rainfall in the US, dumping 33 trillion gallons of water as it made landfall. According to the Red Cross, rain flooded an area in Texas roughly the size of Michigan, and nearly 52 inches of rain fell in Mont Belvieu (a suburb east of Houston), making it the highest total rainfall of any storm in the country’s history.

Harvey displaced 1 million people—early estimates suggest nearly 43,000 headed to shelters, while NPR reported 7,500 people evacuated to Texas State Parks. A Reuters assessment believes 30,000 homes were flooded, resulting in approximately $23 billion in property damage, though experts agree the full environmental impact is still unknown.

Although the storm is over, the recovery has just begun.

Many families have lost everything, and as people begin returning to their neighborhoods to evaluate the damage and cope with the emotional toll, they’re also struggling to address their basic needs. That’s where the Thrive Market community comes in. We’ve launched a few initiatives to make it easy to help in any way you can:

Thrive Market’s Action Plan

• During Labor Day weekend, we diverted resources from our normal Gift With Purchase promotions and used them to fund hurricane aid.
• We put your donations to work and loaded a truck at our distribution center in Batesville, Indiana, with food staples, clean water, diapers, baby products, and supplies. The truck is scheduled to arrive at the Houston Food Bank on September 8.
• For the entire month of September, Thrive Market is giving every dollar donated at checkout through our Spread the Health program to families affected by Hurricane Harvey. Donations will go toward supplying healthy Thrive Market food, baby supplies, and clean water—all purchased at cost—to our partner organizations on the ground.
• Co-founders Nick Green, Gunnar Lovelace, and Sasha Siddhartha have agreed to personally match every dollar donated through September 30.

Help us meet our goal of raising $200,000 by the end of the month! You can donate through our CrowdRise campaign (click the image below) or through our Spread the Health program when you place your next order on ThriveMarket.com. At checkout, just add any dollar amount to your order and our founders will double your gift!

Other ways to help

Here are a few Texas-based nonprofits in need of resources.

• Houston Food Bank
• Food Bank of Corpus Christi
• Texas Diaper Bank
• Galveston County Food Bank
• Southeast Texas Food Bank
• San Antonio Food Bank
• Central Texas Food Bank

Before donating, use Charity Navigator to research your favorite organizations, and if you’d like to volunteer locally, Volunteer Houston is a good resource to help you find the right fit.

We hope you’ll join us in coming together as a Thrive community to support our neighbors in Texas as they work to rebuild their lives and communities.

Photo credits: Thrive Market