The Focused One

Liz Odell

About Liz


Liz has been a part of ShelterBox since 2008 when she began fundraising through her Rotary club in Nailsworth.

A ‘eureka’ moment came to Liz after seeing a ShelterBox speaker at her Rotary club – she wanted to be at the sharp end delivering the aid, so she applied to become a ShelterBox Response Team Volunteer.

It took Liz a year to get through the selection and training process, which included sleeping (or not sleeping) in a tent on the Lizard in the frost in March, and trekking across Dartmoor, soaked to the skin in August.

Liz now has 19 deployments under her belt, including the devastating Nepal earthquake in 2015.

ShelterBox gives me the opportunity to give something back to society.

From Brazil to the Philippines, Liz has been an integral member of the ShelterBox team – responding to disasters all over the world. 

When the island of Lombok in Indonesia was hit by a series of violent earthquakes in 2018, Liz was one of the first Response Team Volunteers on the ground.

Liz also deployed to Bangladesh in 2017, when ShelterBox responded to the Rohingya Crisis. In this video, Liz shares her first impressions soon after arriving at the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.

When you’ve been on 19 different deployments, it can be tough to pick one that really stands out.

But for Liz, it was her deployment to Nepal in 2015. She was able to give a man who lost everything a tent to start his life over again.

We were all crying because we were all just incredibly moved‘, Liz told us.

Hear the full story in the video.

MEET THE OTHER RESPONSE TEAM MEMBERS