#30days30ways Contest Begins on Sept 1st

September is the 10^th Annual National Preparedness Month which means that public safety agencies are busy working on a number of events to ensure that their communities are educated, informed and ready to face any type of crisis situation.  This year’s national theme is “Be Your Own Hero!” 

This year, CRESA will find many heroes by launching its huge online social media game called the 30 Days, 30 Ways Preparedness Challenge which has its own website at www.30days30ways.com.    

Being prepared for emergencies should be as common as wearing your seatbelt, and yet nearly every emergency preparedness survey conducted over the past 10 years indicates that 40-80% of people are unprepared to face certain hazards. 

Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency (CRESA) created this 30-day contest in September 2010 and have, in the last 3 years, recorded the completion of over 7,500 readiness tasks from players in 26 states and 6 countries.      

Players are given a daily challenge at 7:00 a.m. PDT each morning.  Players may submit replies to each of the tasks involved over a 24-hour period through either Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr.  Players can choose to play as many days as they would like throughout the month.  All tasks will be short and will not require a significant amount of time to complete.    

CRESA’s primary goal is for people to share information about emergency preparedness, on social media, to reach people who may not otherwise think about being ready for disasters.  Through sharing and re-sharing information, it is vital for people to think about these interesting themes.         

Submissions will be reviewed for their creativity, relativity to the task and its evident popularity online.  Thanks to generous sponsors, winners will be selected on a daily basis and rewarded with either a $10 gift card to Starbucks Coffee or Amazon.  There will also be 2 Grand Prize winners, selected in October, who will win a $50 Amazon card and a $10 Starbucks card. 

This game sparks great conversations and is a wonderful platform for neighborhoods, scouts, schools and workplaces to use to consider how ready you are to “be your own hero!”  People who choose primarily to watch the game will be able to check out a Tumblr website at www.30daysPrepared.tumblr.com which will bring together the submissions from game players from around the world. 

Game rules and more information can be found on the website at www.30days30ways.com.