Notes: When disaster strikes, Church of the Brethren Disaster Response provides volunteers to clean up debris and to repair or rebuild homes for disaster survivors who lack sufficient resources to hire a contractor or other paid labor. The presence of these volunteer work teams helps to ease the trauma that is felt in the aftermath of a disaster.

Each Church of the Brethren district has an appointed disaster coordinator who issues district-wide appeals for volunteers when they are needed for specific disaster response projects. The coordinators gather biennially in New Windsor to receive training in various aspects of disaster response and volunteer recruitment. Also, there are now several dozen trained, volunteer project directors who provide on-site management of the disaster projects.

The redesign of the General Board in 1997 united the Disaster Response Program, Disaster Child Care, Refugee Resettlement, and Service Ministries, into a single unit called Emergency Response/Service Ministries (ER/SM). ER/SM is directed by Roy Winter, and the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor remains its home.

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