United Way honors Bemidji storm relief volunteers through VIP program

United Way of Bemidji Area is using its VIP recognition program to shine a light on the volunteers who helped Beltrami County get through the June windstorm, and the honor points to a bigger truth about the recovery: local cleanup depended on neighbors filling gaps fast, from chainsaw work and meal delivery to debris removal and small home repairs.

The storm struck during the morning hours of June 21, 2025, and Beltrami County said its Emergency Operations Center remained open as damage reports came in. Two days later, the Beltrami County Board of Commissioners extended the state of emergency for 30 days, underscoring how long the response would last after severe weather blasted the Bemidji area.

United Way and Community Resource Connections stepped into that gap by connecting people willing to help with residents who needed it. The work ranged from cooking meals to hauling debris and cutting up fallen trees, and United Way’s disaster-recovery page says the organization launched a Disaster Relief Fund while still seeking volunteers for chainsaw work, roof repair and small home repairs. That mix of needs shows how storm recovery often moves beyond the first sweep of cleanup and into the slower, more personal work of making homes usable again.

The scale of the damage was severe. Local reporting later described hurricane-like winds reaching up to 120 mph across a 10-mile radius surrounding Bemidji. By December 2025, dozens of community agencies and thousands of volunteers had worked together in the aftermath, turning a one-night disaster into a long recovery effort that reached across neighborhoods, nonprofits and local institutions.

United Way executive director Denae Alamano said the response showed that good can come out of hard things, and the organization was seeing that in real time. That spirit is consistent with United Way’s Someone Special Volunteer Program, which has operated for 36 years with partners including The Bemidji Pioneer, Paul Bunyan Broadcasting and Ken K. Thompson Jewelry. The VIP recognition fits that tradition by publicly honoring the people who step up when the weather turns destructive and the work is too big for any one agency to handle alone.

The lesson for Beltrami County is practical: the next storm will not wait for a formal recovery plan to catch up. Residents who can chain saw, cook, haul, or patch roofs can make the difference between a short disruption and a prolonged one, and the volunteer network built after the June windstorm is still the model for how Bemidji gets back on its feet.