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Citizen Corps seeks new members
BY MICHAEL STEVENS | COMMUNITY PRESS STAFF WRITER
Original article
here
When disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes and
floods strike, people from all walks of life instinctively line
up to help those in need.
But this simple act of kindness can often lead to
trouble for inexperienced volunteers who lack the proper
training, coordination and guidance to be effective, and
sometimes the consequences can be deadly.
This is the type of scenario the Clermont County
Citizen Corps is trying to prevent if a community-wide disaster
should occur where ordinary people rush in to help only to find
they are now the ones in danger.
"We set up a volunteer reception center and that's
where all the volunteers would go during a disaster," said
Leland Hite the organization's vice chair. "And it can be all
kinds of volunteers. It could be doctors, nurses, a bulldozer
operator or just people who have a chain saw."
"The purpose of this is to provide safety to
people volunteering for a disaster and for them to work safely,"
Hite said.
The Citizen Corps is a national grass-roots
organization set up in 2002 as part of President Bush's USA
Freedom Corps initiative and receives funding directly from the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Although the Clermont chapter of Citizen Corps has
not yet had to deploy, the group is trying to stay one step
ahead of natural and man-made disasters by coordinating with
other local emergency preparedness organizations like the Fire
Corps, Medical Reserve Corps, Community Emergency Response Team
(CERT), County Animal Response Team and Volunteers in Police
Service.
"CERT is actually a group that started before
Citizen's Corps in California for earthquakes," said Stephanie
Hines, who helped organize all the separate groups under the
Citizen Corps' umbrella. "We wanted to find interested doctors
who might want to volunteer at Medical Corps for example."
If there is a disaster in the area, the Clermont
County Citizen Corps would set up a reception center close to
the site of the event and then coordinate each relief agency
responding while also assigning volunteers who turn up based
upon their specific expertise, which could be as simple as
providing water and food to firefighters or police.
"We're just trying to get everybody to the table
and keep everyone out of each other's way," said Hite. "We will
bring all other people into the volunteer center, check
credentials and give them ID badges."
The Citizen Corps will hold their first quarterly
open membership meeting March 28 at the Clermont County
Fairgrounds for people interested in joining or for learning
more about the group. They also are looking for local businesses
and organizations willing to provide staging areas close to
disaster sites.
mstevens@communitypress.com
248-7681 |
