On July 4, 2025, Texans woke to terrible news. While we slept, the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country rose 28 feet in less than an hour, claiming more than 100 lives. The disaster shook communities across Texas and far beyond. And when the river flooded again this year, in the early morning hours of July 16, the heartbreak returned.
From the beginning, our local NCF teams knew we had a role to play – and the latest flooding has only reinforced that.
I live in Austin – about 100 miles from the Guadalupe. Like many Texans, I’ve enjoyed weekends there with my family and have friends in the Kerrville community. A crisis that close feels personal. When that first flood hit in 2025, the question that quickly arose was, “What can NCF do? How do we respond?”
NCF’s Texas teams wanted to respond together, and the Austin office was in a position to lead the effort. On July 5, 2025, we opened the Texas Hill Country Flood Relief Fund and invited givers to help.
Local crisis, nationwide response
We expected Texans to respond. But we hadn’t anticipated how many givers from all over the country would join us.
Very quickly, the fund raised nearly $2 million, with about 70% coming from NCF givers outside of Texas. The flooding was national news, and large relief organizations were asking for help. But many people chose to work through NCF, and I believe that was, in part, because they knew a faith-aligned local team was already connected to the people and places most affected.
Once the money began coming in, we had to answer a harder question: Where should it go?
Listening before leading
One of the first people we contacted was a retired NCF giver in Kerrville who is deeply involved in the community, spending much of his time volunteering across a variety of organizations. He knew the churches, nonprofits, businesses, and local leaders. He knew who was already helping, where money was beginning to flow, and where needs were being missed.
I spent a day with him visiting four churches and meeting with pastors, volunteers, the Kerr County commissioner, and other community leaders. We asked what families needed and what other help might be coming.
Before that, I was still thinking in broad categories: housing, food, cleanup, rebuilding. But once I sat across from the people doing the work, those categories had faces. They became families, students, employees, and small business owners.
Those conversations also revealed how closely the needs were connected. Reopening one business could restore an essential service to hundreds of homes. Church benevolence funds could help volunteers walk with families through recovery. A ministry presence in schools could give students a trusted adult for the years of recovery ahead.
It became clear that the fund could make the greatest difference by putting resources behind the churches that already knew the people, understood the needs, and were prepared to care for them throughout the recovery.
Standing behind local churches
Churches know who’s reluctant to ask for help. They know which family has exhausted every other option. They know who needs more than a check – who needs someone to listen, pray, and help them make the next decision.
Church volunteer boards oversaw flood relief, with some members serving almost like caseworkers, walking alongside families and helping them work through whatever stood between them and stability.
The churches already had people ready to serve; the fund gave them more resources.
We significantly expanded churches’ benevolence budgets. But what that really meant was that when a family came to a church with a need, the answer didn’t have to be, “We wish we could do more.” More often, it could be, “Let’s see how we can help.”
That became one of the most encouraging parts of the response. In a time of loss, local churches were able to become what the Church is meant to be – a steady presence, close enough to see the need and equipped to respond.
Seeing what others might miss
At one of our meetings, the county commissioner made a request I’ll never forget. He asked us to support local small businesses. If businesses closed and employers left, the community would feel the loss for decades.
Recovery isn’t just about helping families with the immediate damage. It’s also about preserving the jobs and services those families would need in the years ahead.
Through one of the churches, we learned about a local company that serviced septic and water pumps for rural homes. The flood had destroyed its equipment, and the business couldn’t reopen. About 500 homes depended on well water and needed the company’s services to restore their access to clean water.
We made a $250,000 grant to a charity that helped restart the business. The grant put people back to work, restarted the company, and helped hundreds of households regain access to an essential service. And it showed us that the most effective response isn’t always the most obvious one. Sometimes helping one business get back on its feet allows an entire community to move that much closer to recovery.
We also learned that Young Life wanted to place a dedicated staff member in Kerr County high schools. The regional director was someone we’d worked with before. After the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, we helped fund a Young Life staff member there. That ministry flourished and eventually became locally supported.
Now students near Kerrville were facing their own grief, trauma, and spiritual questions after the flood. The fund made that role possible. We couldn’t undo what those students had experienced. But we could make sure someone was there to walk with them through it.
Waiting for the right moment
When people give after a disaster, they understandably want the money to move quickly. We did, too. But moving quickly and moving wisely aren’t always the same thing.
We made some smaller grants early. But we waited to distribute much of the money until FEMA had made more funding decisions, so we could provide for needs the government wouldn’t cover.
Waiting isn’t always the same as delaying. Sometimes it’s what allows a gift to arrive when it can make the greatest difference.
On the one-year anniversary of the flood, we sent out the final dollars from the Central Texas Flood Relief Fund. We didn’t create the fund to hold money indefinitely. Those resources belonged in the hands of the people serving the community.
We knew recovery in Central Texas wouldn’t end after one year. Less than two weeks after we sent that final grant, heavy rain brought flooding to the Hill Country again, and people who’d begun rebuilding faced another round of loss and uncertainty.
The churches and leaders we worked with remain as important as ever. Because of those relationships, new gifts can move quickly where they’re needed most.
What I’ll remember
I think back to that first July morning and how helpless so many of us felt. A river had risen 28 feet in less than an hour. So many lives had been lost – many of them children. None of us could fix it. But we could respond by equipping the hands and feet of Jesus.
A year later, I’m grateful for the givers who trusted our NCF teams to help their generosity reach the people and places where it could change lives for the glory of God. I’m grateful for the giver who spent a day driving me from church to church, so I could understand. And I’m grateful for the pastors, volunteers, ministry leaders, business owners, and public officials still working to restore our beautiful Hill Country.
No one person had the whole answer. But everyone brought what they had. From the first terrible news on July 4, 2025, to the final grant one year later, generosity moved through relationships – from givers around the country to community leaders who knew exactly how to put it to work. And as new needs emerge from the latest flooding, I’m hopeful because the people, partnerships, and pathways for generosity are already in place.
Photo: Courtesy of Center Point Volunteer Fire Department, July 2026
