Community Volunteers- Who are they

On April 21st, CRESA hosts the Clark County Citizen Corps Appreciation Event.  This is really one of the high points of our year as we thank and acknowledge our volunteers for the support they give each year to their community.  As a follower of CRESA you may be among the nearly 63 million people who volunteered last year (according to the US Bureaus of Labor Statistics).  But if you’re not then you may want to know a bit more about those do volunteer.

For the year September 2013 to September 2014 the US had a volunteer rate of about 25%.  Of those approximately 43% were male and 47% female.  Teens were more active (26%) than twenty something’s (19%) and those of us in the middle had the highest rate of volunteerism at 30%.

Married couples volunteer more (30%) than those who have never married (20%) and those with other marital statuses (21%).   The volunteer rate of parents with children under age 18 (32%) remained higher than the rate for persons without children under age 18 (23%).  Thank you to all our little league and soccer coaches.

Religious organizations lead by type (33.3%) followed by Education & youth services (25.1%), social & community service (14.4%), Health Care (7.4%), Civic (5.2%), sport & hobby (3.9%),  Environmental & animal at (2.6%) and Public Safety at (1.1%).  The remaining volunteers are not determined by type or are in other categories.

These folks give an average of 50 hours a year and participate in at least 2 organizations and 92% have full or part time employment.

These numbers give an overview of who, when, what and how we volunteer.  But if you want to get a sense of who the folks really are- and maybe find an organization where you fit in- then check out our website or leave us a note and maybe we can help  http://cresa911.org/volunteer-programs/

Wanna Be Part of a Twitter Strike Team?

Social Media is changing the way people communicate. And this is particularly true of communicating during an emergency.

About one year ago, the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami generated approximately 1,200 Tweets per minute. And, by today's standards that would now be considered slow.

For comparison's sake, can you guess the speed of messages shared on Twitter? If you guessed 12,000 tweets per second, you'd be close.

If you're working in public safety today, these statistics should downright frighten you. The amount of information that is being generated online has turned into its own tsunami that we will need your help to filter and discern in order to better respond and serve.

Today, CRESA would like to announce a recruitment for a new type of volunteer opportunity. We will be calling this the Virtual Operations Support Team (VOST) which will work to support our emergency operations environment.

The beauty of this volunteer opportunity is that service can be done from anywhere you might have access to the internet. Whether you wish to participate in your pajamas from Nashville or inside our Emergency Operations Center here in Vancouver, Washington, we seek to develop a team of people who are commissioned to watch the community conversations online, gather the key questions & concerns and feed them into our emergency response.

If this interests you, feel free to read more about the VOST concept at this location.

And if you are still interested, fill out an application HERE to participate.

We also ask you to consider sharing this opportunity with people that you know or think would benefit from participating in a team like this. At the beginning of April, we will announce key training opportunities and next steps for team engagement. Thank you for considering this opportunity.

Fire Corps and CERT Training Starts Soon

Two great Citizen Corps programs, Fire Corps and CERT, have training sessions starting very soon in Clark/Vancouver.

We’re very excited to announce that Vancouver Fire Department’s Fire Corps has their inaugural training academy starting February 2. Fire Corps volunteers are critical for non-emergency support functions focusing on education and prevention. Their training will include Smoke Alarm awareness and installation, Home Safety and Small Hazard house training, Fire Extinguisher training and much more. In addition, each volunteer in the program will receive CPR, AED and First Aid training. Click here for information on how to register for their program.

Clark County Fire District 6 is starting their spring session of the highly desired Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training on February 16. This 20+ hour course will follow the national curriculum and help Clark County citizens become more prepared to survive disasters and help their community respond in times of great need. The cost is $30 and you must submit your application with payment before you are on the roster. Click here to see their schedule and registration.

If you need more information regarding other Clark County or City of Vancouver Citizen Corps volunteer programs please email Cindy.Stanley@clark.wa.gov.

Citizens invited to apply for police NOW program

Police can’t be on every corner, but you can!

Neighbors On Watch (NOW), the Vancouver Police Department's citizen patrol program, is accepting applications for volunteer citizen patrollers through January 26, 2012. Applicants must live in the city limits, be a U.S. Citizen, and be at least 21-years old. NOW volunteers receive specialized training to become “extra eyes and ears” in the community, as part of the police department’s Community Oriented Policing efforts.

Currently the NOW program has 87 civic leaders who represent 39 neighborhoods. All NOW volunteers are asked to commit to patrolling at least four hours per month. Citizen volunteers receive a minimum of 26 hours of training in observation skills, police radio communications, crime detection, personal protection and how to report crimes or suspicious activity. All training is provided by the Vancouver Police Department at no cost to the volunteer.

NOW is helping keep things safe while you shop this holiday season. Take a look at this recently filmed video depicting NOW volunteers in action: Operation Christmas Presence!

For more information about the NOW program, visit this Web page or contact Volunteer Coordinator Kelly Cheney at (360) 487-7467 or by e-mail at Kelly.Cheney@cityofvancouver.us.

Groovy Doo-Doo

Last night 61 Clark County Citizen Corps, CERT, Medical Reserve Corps and community members learned about Disaster Sanitation: What to do about Pee and Poo. Shown in the picture is Carol McCreary of the Portland Advocacy group PHLUSH (pronounced Flush). Carol taught the group about the twin-bucket toilet system (used in the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake areas) that you can have in your own preparedness and home kits if your utilities are disrupted due to a large-scale disaster.

The group was also instructed by Nathan Weed, Clark County Public Health and Captain Frank Mazna, Vancouver Fire Department about best practices in a disaster for hygiene, preventing disease outbreak and how to fend for yourself in a disaster.

The event was sponsored by CRESA and the Clark County Citizen Corps group. If you want to be invited to the next community preparedness education class or have emergency preparedness topic ideas that you would like to see presented in 2012, please email cindy.stanley@clark.wa.gov.

Volunteers Needed This Week

Local Fire Departments (Vancouver Fire, Clark County Fire District 6 and Clark County Fire & Rescue) are finishing up some all important exercises this week and need your help. We need 9 more volunteers to act as live victims for their Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) Exercises.

They practice handling incidents before the "real world" situations occur in our community. For all three days of the exercise, the time is 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the old City of Vancouver City Hall Building, 210 E. 13th Street (between Broadway and C Streets).

We’re looking for: 

• 2 more volunteers for Tuesday, November 29 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• 1 volunteer for Wednesday, November 30, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• 7 volunteers for Thursday, December 1. 

You’ll need to wear old clothes and it is recommended you bring a lunch as you’ll likely get "Moulage (Stage Make Up) applied to make your pretend injuries look more real. Others who have already volunteers said the experience "was fun and rewarding". We will take the first volunteers that email us, so please do not show up unless we have confirmed you via email. If you are interested, email cindy.stanley@clark.wa.gov and indicate your name and which day you are available.

Several times a year we get requests for “Victim Volunteers” from the fire departments. If you can’t volunteer this time but want to be on a waiting list for the next exercise? Email cindy.stanley@clark.wa.gov and indicate that you wish to be on a waiting list for the next exercise.