Kerr Together has been coordinating flood recovery for a year — and couldn’t legally accept a donation the whole time

Gibson’s Discount Center reopened Friday after sustaining severe damage in the July 16 flood. For Kelly Hagemeier, the Executive Director of Kerr Together, it hit the way the homecoming parade hit last year — as proof that the community is still here.

“I feel like it is like life again,” Hagemeier said Friday on Lead Live’s Nonprofit Week. “That’s how it is with Gibson’s this year. I’m very excited for them to be back.”

Hagemeier has been inside Kerr County’s flood recovery since the night of July 4, 2025. She is a Kerrville native who has lived here since she was three years old. On the night of July 16, 2026 — flood 2.0, as she calls it, “the sequel we didn’t want” — six inches of water came through her home at 3 a.m. Her kids thought it was a splash pad. She secured them at her mother’s home, lost power and cell service, and made it to the Kerr Together offices by noon to coordinate with the Salvation Army, Red Cross, and municipal emergency management.

The numbers she brought to Friday’s broadcast were verified with the Texas Division of Emergency Management and represent the most precise accounting of the July 16 disaster to date. Of the more than 1,700 individual assessment entries originally submitted — many of them duplicates from anxious residents filing multiple times — the official verified count is 966 residents officially affected, 223 homes with major damage or destroyed, and 123 businesses impacted. Of those 223 damaged homes, 190 are within Kerrville city limits. Of the 25 businesses with major damage or destroyed, 20 are within city limits. Town Creek physically cut off water and sewer lines to major downtown employers including James Avery.

But buried in Hagemeier’s update was something more structurally surprising than any of those numbers.

Kerr Together has been coordinating recovery operations for more than a year — and until recently, it could not legally receive a charitable donation.

The organization was originally established as a temporary, 24-month entity under the Kerr Economic Development Corporation, which holds 501(c)(6) status. A C6 is a business league, not a charitable organization, and federal law prohibits it from receiving direct charitable contributions.

“So we cannot receive donations,” Hagemeier said. “And that’s been a real difficult point for us.”

The board voted in June to pursue a full 501(c)(3) conversion, and the organization is now awaiting its IRS determination letter. Kerr Together, Hagemeier made clear, is no longer a temporary project. Whatever comes next — floods, ice storms, wildfires — the organization intends to be the county’s standing long-term recovery coordinator.

The emotional whiplash of managing that transition while absorbing a second disaster is real.

“I feel there are times where we’re very bipolar,” she said, “and so we talk about 2025 and these are the great things that we accomplished — and then it’s like, and we got to start over again.”

The resource picture for the 2026 response is constrained in ways the 2025 recovery was not. Texans on Mission and All Hands and Hearts — two of the major national volunteer organizations that worked extensively in Kerr County after 2025 — are currently limited to finishing 2025 rebuilds because they have no active funding earmarked for 2026 response. The Mennonite disaster group is fully committed elsewhere through 2027. All Hands and Hearts is wrapping up its final muck and gut operations this weekend. Available volunteer resources are also being divided between Kerr County and Uvalde, which experienced its own flooding.

“We’re being those resources divided up between here and mostly Uvalde,” Hagemeier said.

Temporary housing remains a significant unsolved problem. Local Airbnb credits are exhausted. The rental market — high prices, low inventory — has pushed some displaced residents to look as far as Fredericksburg and Bandera. When Kerr Together kept an emergency shelter open for four days after the flood, “no one showed up,” despite a list of 60 people who said they had nowhere to go. The team is now pursuing individualized housing solutions case by case.

Private insurance companies have been slow. Hagemeier called dealing with them “like beating your head against the wall.” FEMA Individual Assistance has still not been approved. Senator Ted Cruz visited the recovery hub early on with Capitol Police. The organization is continuing to meet with congressional representatives to push for a formal disaster declaration.

“I’m always going to stay optimistic,” Hagemeier said, “because it would be bad if I wasn’t.”

The Kerr Together recovery hub is at 98 Coronado Drive, directly across from Tally. LiftFund, GEM, and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid maintain active presences there. Endeavors staff assist survivors with claims. A community member named Charlie Hornes is on hand simply to sit and listen to anyone who needs to talk. Any resident still needing muck and gut assistance, debris removal, or mold remediation should call immediately: (830) 315-1002.