In the early hours of July 4th, rain in Central Texas triggered flash flooding along the Guadalupe River. In less than half a day, mostly while people slept—including children at summer camp staying in cabins right along its banks—the river transformed from a small stream into a torrent with a flow rate surpassing that of Niagara Falls. The results were deadly and tragic, and our hearts go out to the families of those who lost their lives, to the families of the missing, and to everyone affected by this disaster.
In response to the catastrophic floods, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is making grants to three locally focused nonprofits providing aid. As it has in the wake of other natural disasters and humanitarian crises, SNF sought to respond swiftly by partnering with organizations who know the needs on the ground through their longstanding presence in local communities and who have the capacity to act quickly. Among the organizations supported is one longstanding SNF grantee-partner.
“We share in the shock and devastation of the tragedy that unfolded so rapidly in Texas. We remain grateful for the first responders and local community organizations currently working tirelessly on the ground to support immediate recovery and relief efforts,” said SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos.
The nonprofits SNF is supporting are:
- Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, an organization with a nearly 50-year history of stewarding effective and responsible grantmaking across the ten-county region it serves. The organization is connected to dozens of local nonprofit and mission-driven groups responding to the vast needs of the impacted areas.
- Texas Search and Rescue (Texsar), a volunteer organization that steps in at the request of local authorities, has deployed dozens of people in the hard-hit town of Kerrville and surrounding areas to help search for the missing.
- San Antonio Food Bank, already an SNF grantee-partner, the Food Bank serves 29 counties in South and Central Texas and is actively delivering food relief to the four towns hardest hit by the flooding—Kerrville, Ingram, Hunt, and Centerville—through its existing network of community partnerships.
Since inception, SNF has sought to help respond to natural disasters around the world, including, among many others, wildfires in California in 2025; hurricanes in the Southeastern United States in 2024; Cyclone Freddy in Madagascar, Mozambique, and Malawi in 2023; earthquakes in Syria and Turkey that same year; wildfires in Greece in 2018 and 2021; drought in Ethiopia in 2016; the 2010 earthquake in Haiti; the Indian Ocean Tsunami in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand in late 2004; and Hurricane Mitch in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in 1998. The Foundation’s disaster response approach centers on empowering communities by removing financial and logistical barriers, enabling neighbors to support one another in moments of urgent need.