Our 2025 Digital Prospectus

Hi. We are Love City Strong.

Since 2017, the Love City Strong team has been serving the community of St John in the areas of disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. For us, the common thread connecting that work is community resilience. Through unique programs and partnerships in both the public and private sector, we strive to make sure the St John community is growing stronger, more prepared, and more resilient each day. We are excited to share our 2025 Digital Prospectus, an opportunity for us to share our ongoing work in more detail.

Our Impact So Far

In the last eight years, some of our team’s achievements on St John include:

  • Remediating mold in more than 120 homes
  • Installing 70 filtration systems, serving 223 people and replacing the consumption of 2,680 plastic water bottles per month
  • Conducting bi-annual community needs assessments to help us develop data-driven projects
  • Rebuilding 39 homes through our Resilient Housing Initiative
  • Retrofitting 16 homes through the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Residential Wind Retrofit Project
  • Working with FEMA and VITEMA to pre-stage and manage critical commodities on St John in the event of future disaster impacts
  • Hosting the Plan Cruz Bay community charrette, amplifying residents’ vision for the resilient and community-focused future of St John and raising the profile of St John’s needs and priorities in the territory’s Comprehensive Land and Water Use Plan.

2025 Strategic Focus Areas

Disaster Preparedness and Response

Love City Strong’s core mission is to build and develop preparedness and response capacity on St John. We base these projects around four pillars: Commodities, Asset, and Facilities Management; Training and Development; Planning and Surge Capacity; and Community Outreach and Education. These strategies have been refined year after year, adjusting and shifting as best practices and industry norms evolve.

One of the primary advantages of our community-rooted preparedness and response strategies is that they allow us to manage predictable surge in ways that encourage resilience. Identifying and scoping what constitutes predictable surge in a community, that is, nonprofit and private sector support that is available in the aftermath of a disaster but is not formally contracted, allows public and private entities to work together more efficiently, towards robust and expedient recovery. By cultivating and nurturing our relationships with the private sector, our sister nonprofit organizations, the public sector, and the community at large, we can ensure that all parties are more prepared to respond and address community needs in a timely manner.

As we move into 2025, we believe that our hyper-local preparedness capacity building strategies are the most effective path to community resilience.

Recovery and Mitigation

Recovery is often referred to as “the second disaster”. Historically, recovery lasts years, sometimes decades, and communities in the aftermath of disaster must stay engaged to ensure equitable outcomes. In 2018, Love City Strong expanded our scope to include recovery and mitigation projects. This work includes disaster housing recovery, affordable housing sustainability, project management support, community advocacy, case management, and development of community resources.

In line with our mission, we prioritize identifying and addressing unmet needs, either directly, through our programs, or indirectly, by connecting the community to pre-existing or other alternative resources. We advocate for equitable access to recovery resources by St. John families, and work to develop and support sustainable, culturally aligned mitigation strategies, building a stronger, more resilient St. John.

Why Your Support Matters

At Love City Strong, we are committed to developing and executing projects that serve and support a more resilient community. Donations allow us to continue repairing homes, developing new programs, preparing for future disasters, and offering training and capacity building opportunities to our team, partners, and the community at large. No gift is too small to make an impact, and we are so grateful for the support that has allowed us to make so much progress to date.

  • A monthly donation of $10 allows us to provide a preparedness kit for a household in need, supporting their readiness for the upcoming hurricane season.
  • A monthly donation of $25 allows us to provide a household in need with two weeks of shelf stable food, for use in a disaster.
  • A monthly donation of $100 supports one day of our Go Team’s pre-storm or post-storm Wellness Checks, ensuring that our most vulnerable community members are safe and prepared before and after a storm.
  • A one-time gift of $10,000 can provide new metal hurricane shutters for a family home.

Ways to Get Involved

  • Direct Donations : Individual gifts help support our work so much! Please donate here if you are able!
  • Corporate Partnerships : If your large or small business would like to become a partner of Love City Strong, you can reach out to Meaghan (meaghan@lovecitystrongvi.org) or Mae (mae@lovecitystrongvi.org) to discuss potential partnership opportunities and which of those aligns best with your business’ mission.
  • Spreading Awareness : Our donors are our best ambassadors! Please share this post, share our Prospectus, and spread the word about the work that we do.

As we look towards the future, the role of the federal government in disaster response is evolving. Policy priorities are shifting, and the structure and role of many agencies including FEMA are in flux. Now, more than ever, community resilience and readiness must be the foundation for St John’s preparedness and response efforts.

Our work at Love City Strong focuses on developing sustainable, culturally-aligned preparedness strategies that leverage existing social capital while building new capabilities within the community. In 2025, we are continuing to develop our programs across disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation, building a comprehensive portfolio of programs and services with the end goal of a resilient, strong St. John community.