HOPE worldwide and its 22 subgrantees through the MLK Day of Service grant engaged 6,000 volunteers for the 2012 MLK Day of Service in 15 states and the District of Columbia to help reduce deaths and minimize injuries from home fires. This submission addresses the MLK Day of Service Program and the Disaster Services issue area.

Residential home fires are the biggest disaster threat in the U.S. Once every 30 minutes, someone is injured in a home fire. Every day, seven people on average die in a home fire. In 2010, U.S. fire departments responded to 384,000 home fires, which claimed the lives of 2,640 residents and injured another 13,350. Most of these fires are preventable with cooking and heating incidents ranked as the number one and two causes, respectively, of residential fires, according to the U.S. Fire Administration’s 2010 estimates.

The “Protecting Our Neighbors” program trains volunteers in fire prevention education and was able to reach 72,000 homes with critical information about fire safety tips and escape planning. Many volunteers go door-to-door distributing door hangers with these tips provided by the American Red Cross. These volunteers build the capacity of local communities because resource-strapped fire departments often are not able to focus on prevention efforts.

When residents were home, volunteers engaged in conversations about how to prevent fires and how to minimize injuries by planning and practicing escape routes. When volunteers knocked on a door in Houston, TX, they found a woman who had lost a child in a fire approximately one year before. The woman was inspired to share her own story about loss to help prevent the same tragedy for another family.

More than 700 volunteers in Nashville, TN, served their local firefighters by painting 12 fire houses across the city. While at the firehouse, volunteers participated in fire safety demonstrations with fire fighters. Middle school students in Seattle, WA created their own safety campaigns about home fires. The students discussed Martin Luther King Jr’s call to service and then made fire safety bookmarks for distribution to the entire student body. Students also created public service announcements to be read to the entire school along with fire-safety posters to hang throughout the hallways. After-school students in the TEAM-WORKS Academy made fire safety posters to hang throughout a Boys and Girls Club.

More than 65 percent of fire deaths occur in a home without a working smoke detector. Volunteers in other sites helped distribute or install more than 1,000 smoke detectors and fire extinguishers and gave away 277 batteries for smoke detectors.

More than 150 partners rallied behind this nationwide fire prevention effort. Partners included 15 HOPE worldwide chapters, 15 American Red Cross chapters, 17 local fire departments, local volunteer centers, and numerous other partners such as local housing authorities, restaurants and businesses. Community partners contributed more than $166,000 in cash and in-kind contributions. This Disaster Services program also included 112 national service participants including AmeriCorps VISTA members, AmeriCorps National Direct members and RSVP members.