Resilience Hub

Renacer helps families prepare for disasters and advances environmental health, climate resilience, and the protection of older adults, working families, and communities of limited resources during emergencies across our service area.

Our approach treats environment, climate, and health as one connected system, addressing canopy gaps as heat exposure issues, missing evacuation plans as chronic disease emergencies, and disaster preparation as a year-round community wellness practice.

We operate the Centro de Resiliencia initiative as the convener of the East Orlando and University Resilience Hub, serving Orange and Seminole counties. We bring together residents, local churches, schools, healthcare providers, and government partners along the Orlando urban corridor and out to the rural boundary, with focused attention on the East Orlando communities (32807, 32817, 32822, 32825, 32826) and on the agricultural communities at the edge of our service area where linguistic isolation and other upstream drivers of poor health concentrate.

The initiative contains four projects: Nuestros Bosques urban reforestation, Hurricane Preparation, Hurricane Response, and Conservation.

For the families we serve, many of whom have lived through Hurricane María, Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Milton, and the displacement that followed, environment, climate, and health are connected. A canopy gap is a heat exposure issue. A missing evacuation plan is a chronic disease emergency waiting to happen. We address these connections through coordinated work across reforestation, hurricane preparation, hurricane response, and conservation.

Our work has been supported by The Smile Trust, with whom we coordinate through its disaster Emergency Operations Center for situational awareness, mutual aid, and resource flow before, during, and after declared emergencies; we are also a founding partner of the former Azalea Park resilience hub, a Smile Trust site. We carry long-standing relationships with the Coalition of 100 Black Women of Central Florida, the Ms. Betty Resilience Hub and Learning Center in Parramore, and the Central Florida Black Nurses Association, extending our coordination capacity into Parramore and surrounding Orlando neighborhoods, and into the regional network of nurse leaders, community advocates, and youth leadership programs working on heat exposure, hurricane preparedness, environmental health, and community health.

Bosque Comunitario de la Fe

Renacer restores urban canopy, plants trees, and connects people to nature, Florida's outdoors, and the mental health benefits of time spent in the natural environment.

Our planting work treats trees as care: culturally significant fruit trees alongside native and climate-adapted species, in public spaces and private backyards, paired with a community nursery that cultivates 1,500 trees annually.

We operate Nuestros Bosques as our urban reforestation project under the Centro de Resiliencia initiative, funded through an $825,000 USDA Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry pass-through grant awarded in winter 2024. We operate in Azalea Park (32807) and adjacent neighborhoods. To date, we have planted more than 1,000 trees, generated $1.3 million in economic impact (a 154.6% return on investment), addressed 41% of the local tree canopy gap, served 100 households, and created 11 positions.

The full project plan calls for planting 2,090 trees and conserving 175 at-risk trees across the two-year project period. The species mix combines native and climate-adapted Florida species with culturally significant tropical fruit trees, including mango, avocado, and papaya, as well as oaks. We plant in both public spaces and private backyards, and we operate a community nursery that cultivates 1,500 trees annually to support ongoing sustainability. Nuestros Bosques is both an environmental project and a wellbeing project, integrating urban tree canopy work with community engagement and promoting the connection between mental wellness and nature in the communities we serve. For families navigating displacement, acculturation, and the heat burden that disproportionately affects under-canopied neighborhoods, the trees are cared for.

This project has been made possible through Hispanic Access Foundation (HAF), whose Nuestros Bosques initiative is funded by the USDA Forest Service; Biofilia, an environmental design and ecological firm whose expertise has informed species selection, canopy design, and ecological integration; Corpus Care, a clinical and wellness collaborator connecting the reforestation work to broader health pathways for participating families; Bliss Health, our partner on the BCF (Bosque Comunitario de la Fe) project beginning in April 2026 with the "Planting for Life: Clean Air, Stronger Communities" initiative; and Observatorio Ambiental Hispano, Inc., which provided support in an earlier phase of the project on community environmental engagement.

We participated in the VoLo Foundation 2026 Philanthropy Conference, a Florida-based climate philanthropy with which we maintain an active relationship around the intersection of climate, displacement, and community health.

Beyond our partnership with the USDA Forest Service, this project has strengthened our relationships with the City of Orlando Commission, District 2, and Florida State Representative Johanna López (Florida House District 43, which covers Azalea Park, Union Park, and surrounding East Orlando communities).

Hurricane Preparation (project)

Renacer helps families and seniors prepare for storm season, extending trusted relationship infrastructure into households where language and other upstream drivers compound disaster risk.

Our trained CHW workforce, already serving more than 100 seniors at any given time, also mobilizes for hurricane preparation, extending the same trusted-relationship infrastructure into disaster readiness.

We operate Preparación de Huracanes as our hurricane preparation project under the Centro de Resiliencia initiative. We carry our own emergency management capacity, built on the trusted relationship infrastructure of our trained Community Health Worker workforce, which serves more than 100 seniors in Central Florida at any given time.

As an FCB Sole Source authorized community health agency, we mobilize before declared emergencies through the same CHW workforce that delivers our year-round community health work. Our preparation work reaches families and seniors along the Orlando urban corridor through to the rural boundary, with a focus on agricultural and senior households where linguistic isolation and other upstream drivers compound disaster risk. Through the East Orlando and University Resilience Hub and the former Azalea Park resilience hub, we serve as a community-anchored coordination point for preparedness messaging, household readiness conversations, and trusted information flow as storm season approaches.

Our work has been recognized through press coverage of the Hurricane Preparedness Kit Distribution held on April 13, 2024, documented by Nonahood News, Orlando Weekly, and The Orlando Times.

We have worked alongside Senior Resource Alliance (SRA) since at least April 2024 to deliver hurricane kit distributions to seniors across SRA's four-county service area (Brevard, Orange, Osceola, and Seminole), and with The Smile Trust at the former Azalea Park resilience hub.

Disaster Relief and Emergency Management (project)

Renacer responds to declared disasters as a community-anchored coordination partner, coordinating with local officials and delivering bilingual mass communication, pastoral care, and recovery support across the emergency response ecosystem.

Our reach extends into limited-English-proficiency (LLE) communities, and we understand the unique needs of the areas we serve. We facilitated a community emergency operations center in East Orlando and were a founding member of the one in Azalea Park, which operated for nearly 10 years before being sunset. We carry the situational awareness, trusted relationships, and bilingual reach that enable government Emergency Operations Centers to extend coordination into LLE communities that mainstream alert and response systems often miss.

We operate Respuesta a Desastres y Manejo de Emergencias as our disaster relief and emergency management project under the Centro de Resiliencia initiative. We have executed projects funded through federal disaster relief resources in response to multiple presidentially declared major disasters in the State of Florida, including Hurricane Ian (FEMA Major Disaster Declaration DR-4673-FL, declared September 29, 2022) and Hurricane Milton (FEMA Major Disaster Declaration DR-4834-FL, declared October 11, 2024). Work under these declarations has encompassed both preparedness and recovery activities.

We function as a community-anchored coordination partner within the broader emergency response ecosystem, operating as an extended primary partner in the same family of community-based organizations that emergency managers rely on alongside utilities, NGOs, and Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) groups.

Mass communication during disaster events runs through our Spanish-language digital channels, which we activate to deliver evacuation guidance, public safety information, and post-event recovery resources in real time and in the language of the affected community. Our reach extends beyond Central Florida to the Gulf Coast, where response work has supported indigenous Mayan communities in Wimauma, Hillsborough County, and other communities along the Gulf who often live outside the formal recovery system due to language, documentation, and trust barriers.

Pastoral care and crisis counseling capacity, anchored by ordained clergy and trained CHWs, allow us to respond to physical needs after disasters and to the bereavement, displacement, and trauma they leave behind.

On the community and nonprofit side, we joined Seminole H.E.A.R.T. (Home-Based Emergency Assistance Response Team) in 2026, the 501(c)(3) interfaith nonprofit coalition that helps survivors of declared disasters in Seminole County through case management, preparedness, and recovery assistance, extending our coordination capacity directly into the Seminole County Emergency Operations Center. We continue to strengthen our existing relationship with Boricuas de Corazón Inc. in Hillsborough County, which supported us with Spanish-language mass messaging during the Hurricane Milton response, helping LLE communities along the coast evacuate and move inland safely.

Additional community and nonprofit support has come through Communities RISE Together, an HHS-funded national public health initiative supporting community health work in Black, Hispanic, and limited-English-proficiency (LLE) communities, led by WE in the World and the Public Health Institute.

Our past government coordination work includes the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) and the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM), with whom we have coordinated on public health emergency response, outbreak response (including efforts related to mpox and meningitis), and community-level preparedness. We coordinated directly with FDEM during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

At the federal level, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided support through the Communities RISE Together initiative.

In response to Hurricane Milton, we coordinated communications with the City of Orlando Commission, District 2, and the U.S. Congressional District 10 office, partnering on promoting access to resources and information within the Orlando service area.

Conservation

Renacer sustains a long-term canopy across Azalea Park and adjacent neighborhoods by conserving at-risk trees and operating a community nursery.

Our work goes beyond planting new trees: we are conserving 175 at-risk trees over the project period and operating a community nursery that cultivates 1,500 trees annually to sustain a long-term canopy.

We operate Conservación as the conservation project under the Centro de Resiliencia initiative, anchored within the Nuestros Bosques framework. Over the two-year USDA-funded project period, we are conserving 175 at-risk trees (50 in Year 1 and 125 in Year 2) and planting 2,090 new trees.

We operate a community nursery that cultivates 1,500 trees annually, supporting long-term canopy sustainability across Azalea Park and adjacent neighborhoods. Our conservation activities span both public spaces and private backyards, and prioritize native and climate-adapted Florida species alongside the culturally significant fruit trees that connect families to memory, food sovereignty, and place.

We carry this work alongside the Hispanic Access Foundation (HAF), which frames the Nuestros Bosques project under which conservation is anchored.

Our government partners include the USDA Forest Service, which funds the project.