KERRVILLE — The Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country announced $18 million in initial funding commitments for flood recovery, including more than $11 million that will be earmarked for housing efforts and $5 million to help small businesses.
Another $1.7 million will be split across four nonprofit organizations in Kerr, Gillespie, Kendall, Uvalde and Real counties to provide emergency assistance to affected families, foundation CEO Austin Dickson said at a news conference Tuesday.
The Kerrville-based nonprofit received about $150 million in donations after last year’s deadly Guadalupe River flood. Nearly all of the $18 million announced this week is money that was donated in 2025 but donors approved reallocating to supporting victims of this year’s flood, he said.
The bulk of the funding, about $11.3 million, is for housing repair and rebuilding efforts in Kerr County.
In Kerrville alone, more than 600 homes were damaged, city officials said this week. Many of them in neighborhoods along creeks that feed the Guadalupe River.
Dickson said additional funding has been secured for housing efforts in Uvalde County, which was also hit hard by flooding during the week of July 13. More information about that “significant investment” will be available in the coming weeks, he said.
He said the foundation is still determining how the initial $11.3 million will be spent, but the organizations that led case management and home rebuilding efforts after the 2025 flood will likely be recipients of additional funding to respond to the second flood.
That includes the Hunt Preservation Society, All Hands and Hearts and Habitat for Humanity, he said.
“All three of those home repair organizations have been contacted, they have said yes, we are in for 2026 home rebuilding, and they will very likely be getting money from the Community Foundation to continue rebuilding for newly-affected families,” Dickson said.
All Hands and Hearts, an international disaster recovery organization based in Massachusetts, had been funded to rebuild up to 30 homes in Kerr County after last year’s flood. Before the second flood, 11 were completed and nine more were in progress, Strategy Director Alix Seyfarth said.
Of those, three had flood damage this month, including one with major damage, she said.
The organization had four people in Kerr County before the July 16 flood, including Seyfarth, Chief Strategy Officer Jess Thompson said; now, about 15 people, including staff and skilled volunteers, with more to come.
She said All Hands and Hearts has a goal of 20 “muck-and-gut” responses for 2026, and will work to rebuild as many of those homes as possible, “funding-dependent.”
“It’s really exciting that they’ve opened up the funding,” Seyfarth said. “We’re planning on sticking around as long as we can, and as long as we’re able to do so.”
Dickson said another $5 million will go to LiftFund to provide grants to small businesses. The San Antonio nonprofit awarded more than $17 million in grants and loans to businesses after the 2025 flood, and CEO and president Amy Hereford told the Express-News recently that she expects to receive at least 500 more requests for help after the second flood.
The foundation’s news conference was held in the parking lot of one affected business: Gibson’s Discount Center, near Town Creek, which had four to six inches of water inside on July 16, manager Doug Hetzler said.
“Small businesses like ours don’t have the luxury of pushing pause, we don’t have corporate backing from some other state,” he said. “We go full throttle.”
He urged fellow businesses to reach out to the LiftFund and Community Foundation for help.
“Don’t try to do it alone,” he said. “Apply for assistance, that’s the only way that these guys are going to know that you’re going to need help, and there’s genuine people that really and truly want to help.”
The remaining $1.7 million from the foundation’s initial commitment will be split across four nonprofits in the region to disburse as emergency assistance directly to affected residents.
Those organizations are Light on the Hill in Kerrville, Catholic Charities San Antonio, Hill Country Community Needs Council in Fredericksburg, Hill Country Family Services in Boerne.
Catholic Charities San Antonio, which serves a 19-county region, has been in Uvalde County since July 16, and has provided emergency supplies, mobile showers and laundry services to more than more than 500 families since the recent flood, CEO Ada Saenz said.
The organization received more than $300,000 from the Community Foundation to provide grants of up to $1,500 to families in Uvalde and Real counties, she said. That money is intended to help with immediate, day-to-day needs, and the organization will continue to work in the area on long-term recovery efforts.
“Our team is already working with flood survivors and we’re ready to walk alongside families through the days and months ahead,” she said.
To receive funding from those four organizations, residents should fill out the foundation’s needs assessment form, and will be contacted by the nonprofit partner in their area.
Dickson said that while many donors agreed to redirect their contributions from 2025 to support 2026 flood recovery efforts, more financial assistance is needed in the Hill Country to help those affected by both disasters.
“We are not choosing between last year’s survivors and this year’s survivors,” he said. “Every promise we made is a promise that will remain today.”
“We need more philanthropic resources, we have massive need across the region,” he said. More homes were affected this year in Kerr County than in last year’s flood, he said, and the recent disaster stretched across a wider area, including Uvalde, Kendall, Real and Gillespie counties.
“We have damage all over the region, and there are simply not enough donated resources to fulfill all those needs,” Dickson said. “We need governmental support, absolutely, and we also need donations to help people get back to some sense of normalcy.”
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