Our story
Built by survivors. Run by neighbors.
ND Lions Emergency Relief is a volunteer-run disaster response organization based in Mandan, North Dakota — because no family that loses their home to disaster should fall through the gap between the first ambulance and the first hotel night.
Who we are
A volunteer-led community response group
ND Lions Emergency Relief is a volunteer-led community response group based in the Bismarck-Mandan area. We help families and individuals displaced by fires and other emergencies by coordinating immediate needs, donated items, hotel support, household goods, and connections to partner agencies.
Financial donations are handled through qualified nonprofit partners, including the North Dakota Community Foundation, so funds can be received, tracked, and directed responsibly.
It started with one fire, and one trailer.
In July 2019, the Sunset Bluffs apartment fire in Mandan displaced dozens of residents overnight. Volunteers showed up immediately — but they didn’t have a place to stage supplies, didn’t have a mobile unit, and didn’t have a way to track who needed what.
One of the Sunset Bluffs survivors donated a trailer to the relief effort. The Mandan Lions Club adopted the project, formalized it into ND Lions Emergency Relief, and we’ve been the rapid-response arm for fires and other disasters across North Dakota ever since. Today we run the operation out of a storage facility on 71st Avenue north of Bismarck. Same trailer. Better systems.
By the numbers
2019
Founded after the Sunset Bluffs fire in Mandan.
100%
Of donor-pool dollars go to displaced families.
All
Volunteer. No paid staff.
Our partners
Every major response is coordinated with these partners. None of us could do it alone.
Western ND American Red Cross
Initial shelter, financial assistance, disaster mental health support. Leads cross-agency coordination.
Crisis Care Chaplaincy
Spiritual and emotional care for affected families and first responders.
Salvation Army
On-scene meals, supplies, crisis casework for displaced families.
Local hospitality
Hotels in Bismarck and Mandan that hold rooms at preferred rates during a response.
Faith communities
Including Century Baptist Church, which has hosted initial shelter operations.
Lions Clubs International
Disaster relief grants and the broader Lions service network across North Dakota.
Every dollar accounted for.
We track two fund pools separately: insurance reimbursements and donor dollars. Every transaction has a receipt, a household it served, and an approver. Annual reports are public. If you donate, you can ask us at any time what your contribution helped with — we’ll tell you, by date and category, while keeping the household’s identity private.