The Volunteer Center of Madison County in Huntsville, AL recruited dozens of volunteers for three sessions of "Be Ready Camp", a weeklong disaster-preparedness program for sixth-graders held at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center (USSRC) during September, which is Disaster Preparedness Month. Be Ready Camp was created by the Governor's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Madison County Emergency Management Agency and the USSRC. The program is an abridged, "child-friendly" version of Community Emergency Response Team Training. The goal of the camp is for students to be able to help themselves, their families and their neighbors for three days after a major disaster.
According to Pam Menefee, The Center's Volunteer Program Manager and Director of the Language Bank, last year's Be Ready Camp was so popular that two more sessions were added this year. Students were bused in for the three camps from three different regions of the state - north, south and central - and were housed at the USSRC.
During their training, students studied a wide variety of subjects, including basic first-aid and triage, light search-and-rescue, fire suppression, terrorism threat identification and handling hazardous materials. "They basically live and breathe disaster preparedness for a whole week," said Menefee.
The camps culminate after dinner on the final evening with a mock disaster. Campers have to set up an incident command system and begin making decisions on disaster containment and victim rescue and triage. They have to put out fires, find victims in settings including water and crashed planes and helicopters, stabilize victims and arrange for emergency transport. The operation commanders are "shadowed" by adult disaster professionals, who don't tell them what to do but will help them get back on track if they start to lose their way.
Firefighters, police personnel and local ambulance companies are all part of the exercise. "Campers can actually call in a helicopter for rescue if they deem it necessary," Menefee said. The Red Cross provides a disaster truck to make sure participants have water and food for the duration of the mock disaster.
"It takes about 200 volunteers to pull this off," said Menefee. "It's very realistic for the campers." Besides the many "victims" needed, professional makeup artists are on hand. "We recruited a lot of volunteers for this event, and the organizers didn't turn a single person away. And everybody learned something by participating."
The students leave camp with a kit filled with bandages, a hard hat, gloves and other disaster-preparedness items, and the know-how to create a disaster kit for their own home.
The Volunteer Center of Madison County is the premier connection between volunteers and community needs. We partner with the community to mobilize volunteers and provide solutions to local challenges. We build the capacity of partner agencies - United Way and Combined Federal Campaign - to involve and manage volunteers and to address local needs through volunteering. Created in 1969 as a clearing-house to link new volunteers with non-profit organizations, the Volunteer Center believes that only people can solve community problems.