It started with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita! We coordinated local efforts to send relief to those in need. Supplies were collected and trucks were sent out.
Then…it happened
at home. Local flooding and intense heat
wrecked havoc in our own back yard!
Power-outages had compromised home-medical machinery. Participants in
our senior programs were frantically calling because THEY HAD NO ONE TO HELP
THEM! People needed sump pumps; people needed willing hands. Some of our neighbors had lost
everything. It was a call to action for
all of us at the Winter Center.
We formed “volunteer corps” and we went everywhere we could. With friends and family distant or non-existent, many people waited for us, helpless and alone. 2005 was a harsh year for weather and a rough time for us. It was frightening and exhausting experience and there was so much unmet need. We vowed we would be ready for the ‘next time’ and from this fierce pledge, Community Relief Teams came into being.
Now we are blessed to have a special group dedicated to organizing volunteer teams to offer immediate emergency assistance to the victims of natural and man-made disasters, extreme temperatures and the frail or elderly who are experiencing profound poverty. Program, development and administrative functions are centrally coordinated and the work is performed by teams of volunteers who are ‘activated’ by circumstance or assigned by the central staff.
Our programs work with local professionals and institutions in both Kansas and Missouri and incorporate volunteer training in the areas of technology, social and practical skills for dealing with those impacted by disaster and basic first aid and first response protocols.
We also respond to needs in other
states by coordinating and transporting medical, cleaning, comfort and
construction supplies and sending volunteer relief and construction teams to
provide both immediate and long term assistance.
Volunteers undergo a back-ground check and are pre-screened for their interest, areas of expertise, and scope of comfort in dealing with types of disaster situations.
Emergency Relief Pods are activated by local pod leaders in instances where a disaster is urgent but not wide spread. For larger impact-areas, we utilize both local reporting and the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System. This system is an automated monitoring system which provides near real-time alerts about natural disasters and the tools to facilitate response coordination, including: media monitoring, map catalogues and a virtual ‘On-Site Operations Coordination Center’.
Climate
Relief Teams The concept is a
simple one. Volunteers are screened and
trained; a list is made of frail or elderly participants. These two groups are then ‘matched up’ and when
weather conditions are tough, the teams are mobilized to action. Sometimes it is a simple phone call. Other times teams are activated to
respond to their pre-assigned clients based on the issuance of local
alerts. These alerts are a result of
extremes in the ‘comfort index’ assigned to a specific community or area. The 'Comfort Index' is both objectively and subjectively
determined and utilizes temperatures and dew point levels in times of heat and
temperatures and wind-chill factors in times of cold.
B.A.S.E.
Working with local churches, hospitals, libraries and other
civic or public institutions, this program provides a staging area of first response for smaller communities or primarily rural areas. It is designed to begin operation as soon as
a disaster occurs and to cease operations once State, and/or Federal assistance
professionals or national-relief organizations arrive on the scene.
B.A.S.E. stations are pre-stocked with emergency supplies and
utilize a ‘call tree’ of local, pre-assigned volunteers. They also have access
to a network of statewide volunteers, which can be activated if the situation
warrants. As with all of our C.R.T. programs,
volunteers undergo a
back-ground check and are pre-screened for their interest, areas of expertise,
and scope of comfort in dealing with types of disaster situations.