Helping Houston Humane
Hurricane Harvey was bearing down on the United States with Texas directly in his sights. Homeowners were checking through their lists to ensure they were prepared, but as a Gulf Coast resident, news of storms and potential flooding is not uncommon. However, this year was different, & the storm did hit the mainland.
Harvey made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 Hurricane, with winds up to 130mph. Rain levels reached up to 60 inches in the greater Houston area. Many parts of the metro area were completely flooded, thus isolated while disaster relief was preparing to assist the human inhabitants. But what about the animals?
In the days leading up to Harvey’s landfall, Houston Humane pushed notices to followers of how to prepare pet owners and that they were ready to assist if needed. Houston Humane took on nearly 60 animals from La Porte Animal Control too, further extending their support. Then the storm hit… Parking lots were flooded, roads were impassable and waters were creeping up to the Shelter doors. Houston Humane was on an island essentially, supplies were dwindling and calls were pouring in from all over the country asking how they could help.
Houston Humane set up a Wishlist on Amazon and a donation link in the days following the departure of Harvey. Arrangements with additional shelters to assist with animals left behind, and presently in the Houston Humane center were made. Once the doors were open to the public again, more support started coming into the Houston Humane center. The need for help was immediate, as was the need for supplies & funds to support the current animals and those yet to arrive or be relocated.
Volunteers worked around the clock taking care of Houston’s stranded and abandoned four footed friends. The response in the form of donations, both money and items was overwhelming and much appreciated by the dedicated team from Houston Humane. But a new “problem” surfaced that no one had dealt with before. How do we track all of the donations coming in? The volume of support over such a short time left volunteers overwhelmed and manually inputting data into their systems. Capturing data by manually pasting contact information and donation amounts into spreadsheets was no small task. They needed to capture all of the vital contact information that was received from donors across the States, and the Globe.
mailparser.io received word from Houston Humane asking for help. Processing the extremely high volume of emails with donation messages was literally going to take months for the Houston Humane volunteers. Our Support team jumped in and discussed what it would take to accomplish Houston Humane’s goals. Lynn and Greg were super helpful in outlining what they needed done and the current format of all the donation emails. Greg did all of the work to get the backlog of emails into the mailparser.io app and rest is history. Some simple extraction rule creation of the data was all that was needed and Houston Humane was able to receive an Excel spreadsheet with all of the contact and vital donation information. This was provided as a simple download link within the app. Of course, should they need it as a XML, or JSON feed, they can get that as well.
Although the work at the shelter is far from over, as Houston Humane still continues the work on the ground every day. We were happy to assist to the unexpected and overwhelming show of support for their cause. Please continue to support the Houston Humane and your local Humane Centers. Like to know more about mailparser.io and how we can help your business or non-profit become super-efficient in processing and capturing data from emails? Let us know. Want to donate to Houston Humane? Please follow this link.
