Innovation Award Spotlight: Senior Resource Alliance
Date postedJune 30, 2026
As an Innovation Award winner, Senior Resource Alliance strives and succeeds to meet the time-sensitive needs of Central Florida’s aging population through its Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP).
The multi-level system activates during designated scenarios – such as hurricanes, tornados or flooding – with the nonprofit establishing extreme heat, ransomware attacks, telecommunication failures and utility outages as risk areas in 2026.
Once a CEMP is activated, Senior Resource Alliance begins immediate communication with staff, its expansive network of providers, Area Agencies on Aging across Florida and atrisk older adults to determine how to best meet local medical, food and housing needs.
In the last decade, the organization has launched emergency operations nine times, including during:
- Hurricane Irma in 2017, when multiple tornados roared through neighborhoods
- Hurricane Ian and Nicole, which ravaged Central Florida within weeks of each other in 2022
- Hurricane Helene in 2024, as thousands of households lost power
- COVID-19 pandemic, while seniors faced growing medical concerns, financial insecurity and social isolation
Outside of CEMP, Senior Resource Alliance has continuously protected vulnerable older adults by opening cooling and warming stations to help the community escape blistering or frigid weather – in addition to donating stoves and refrigerators to these locations and distributing emergency preparedness kits. This summer, the nonprofit anticipates extending this coordinated and compassionate outreach by activating the first-ever extreme heat CEMP when temperatures reach triple digits.