COLUMBIA, SC (SCDVA) - The South Carolina Department of Veterans’ Affairs is partnering with the South Carolina Office of Resilience to raise awareness of unique job opportunities for Veterans within the Disaster Recovery Reserve Corps (DRRC). The Office of Resilience is seeking highly-skilled reservists to be trained to join the DRRC and placed on a reserve list to be activated and deployed to assist survivors following a federally-declared disaster. This will increase the speed in which aid is provided to those impacted by disasters in South Carolina. State funding is now available to the Office of Resilience to begin hiring and training Reservists for disaster case management teams, whereas previously there was a delay until after funding was received through FEMA.
The DRRC is targeting the following groups for recruitment:
- Former and retired SCOR and SCEMD employees;
- Former and retired employees of State Agencies and private businesses;
- Military retirees and Veterans; and
- Recent college graduates, undergraduates and graduate level students.
"In the past, the difficulty has been that we didn't have enough people available. So, when that disaster happens, people have to wait for help," says Office of Resilience Program Coordinator, Tasha Milhouse. "But, with this new initiative we're trying to eliminate some of the wait time so that we can get to survivors as quickly as possible, to get out and get roots on the ground and get those assessments done."
DRRC's goal is to hire Corps Members in all 46 counties. They have adopted SCEMD's six disaster regions to assist with this goal. DRRC plans to focus their recruitment on coastal regions first and then move to other areas. Corps members are hired by the Office of Resilience in a temporary/part-time hourly status before a disaster, and are paid for training and travel to the training site only.
For more information or consideration for a position with the Disaster Recovery Reserve Corps, contact Tasha Milhouse at tasha.milhouse@scor.sc.gov or 803-737-2707.
