The holidays are filled with opportunities to give your time to make a difference.  Even small amounts of time spent volunteering can make a big difference in the preparedness and safety of your agency, community, or family.

Some ideas:

However much time you have available for volunteering, dedicate at least a small portion to building the safety and resilience of your community!

Tip: Remember to check out your local Volunteer Center for more opportunities to connect.

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Many of us will engage in sharing gifts with colleagues, neighbors, friends, family and teammates at holiday parties. For safety enthusiasts this is a wonderful way to share your passion for preparedness. You can increase the readiness of all participants by incorporating safety sensibilities and helpful items into the event itself.

Some ideas:

• Shiny silver mylar blankets make excellent, reusable table cloths and curtains
• Small LED flashlights can be used by each person to signal when they have a toast, acknowledgment or comment to share
• Wrap presents with bandanas — decorated with colorful Sharpie markers or tied with ribbon — which can then be added to personal go-kits

This is a great way to show the everyday utility and practicality of preparedness supplies and gently thread awareness through your event.

Tip: Take lots of photos and after the party, ask people if they can point out all the ways safety and preparedness items appear in the pictures.

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One of the most valued gifts you can give is to make people aware of the difference they make. Prepare before your next team gathering to give special thanks, appreciation and acknowledgment – publicly and privately – to the people who make preparedness a reality.

Emergency responders are deservedly given all kinds of accolades and praise, so be sure to bring special attention to the champions of the less glamorous tasks of daily safety and preparedness.  Look over your team roster and see what steps people took to forward safety and preparedness. Did they patiently push-through the bureaucracy of a grant, or perhaps do all the scheduling for a class or drill, or were they the consistently smiling and willing “go to” participant?

Seek out the unsung, behind-the-scenes heroes of your preparedness efforts and sing out their praises.

Tip: Beyond helping people to recognize preparedness as a noble and heroic undertaking, have your words also help people to value simply being consistent and persistent in fulfilling on a stated goal.

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Many emergency managers use “Form #1” — a piece of yellow legal paper — if an official form isn’t available. While plain paper is a necessary part of your preparedness tool kit, graph paper and the structure it provides offers extra value.

Use graph paper to:

• Create neater, more legible emergency signage
• Make impromptu floor plans and layouts for rooms
• Count off 140 boxes to make “Tweet sheets” and have your team create Tweets or social media status updates (Remember: 140 characters and spaces total)
• Draw makeshift game boards (checkers, chess, crosswords, etc.) to keep people amused
• Create a matrix (e.g., rows with staff names, columns with required onsite safety protocols)

Stash some graph paper in your emergency response supplies and add to the list of great uses for graph paper!

Tip: You can make custom graph paper using Excel and there are graph paper generators online.

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Customized, pre-printed address labels offer budget-conscious preparedness zealots a multitude of solutions. Several companies allow you to upload a logo and write up to 4 lines of text – all online.  For under $20 you can create several attractive labels to suit your preparedness needs.

Suggestions:

• Create an inventory sticker and ensure your preparedness supplies are clearly and consistently labeled.

• Correct out-dated or wrong information – addresses, phone numbers, websites, preparedness instructions (Example: standing in a doorway during an earthquake is outdated, wrong and dangerous!)

• Add new information to existing preparedness materials – add staff contacts, social media sites, new services offered.
• Label your preparedness giveaways or other distributed materials as being “Provided by” your agency and include your website or contact information.

Be creative — labels are fast, easy, low-cost ways to improve your safety and preparedness materials.

Tip: If you use generic business cards for everyone in your department or company, attractive, printed address labels can be used for individual names and email addresses.

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Whiteboards and dry erase markers are unparalleled disaster planning and organizational tools.  A new product called “Write On Wall Clings” gives you the high-functionality of whiteboards in a highly portable form. “Clings” are thin poly sheets that ‘cling’ (by static electricity) to walls, windows, or other surfaces, and can be written on using regular dry erase markers. They come either on pads or in rolls, they’re reusable, and a few sheets can be stashed easily in a trunk or glove compartment for mobile and on-scene planning.
Some possible uses:

• Create a blank emergency organization chart (ready to be filled in on the spot)·
• Use small sections of a Cling to create temporary signage for an event·
• Post multiple Clings to act as a make-shift screen for a projected PowerPoint

Tip: Post Clings and dry erase markers in shared spaces and encourage your team to practice creating timelines and action plans.

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Few office supplies can rival the simple Post-it note for ease-of-use and convenience in emergency and disaster planning. Getting everyone involved in planning is one of the most important things you can do, and Post-it notes allow for fast and easy engagement.

A great way to start: put an emergency planning question on a bulletin board and have everyone write a suggestion on a Post-it. This gives everyone an easy way to contribute, and the person with responsibility a fast way to sort ideas.

Starter questions:

1. What emergency foods should we stock?
2. What needs to happen in the next four hours if we have to Shelter-in-Place?
3. Which people should fill each role on our emergency organization chart?

Bust out the Post-it notes in your next meeting and encourage creativity!

Tip: Check out the many different Post-it products available to help with your emergency planning.

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Empower your team to be resourceful with the supplies they already have on hand. Sharpies or other permanent markers are great preparedness tools and excellent items for brainstorming exercises.

Some great uses for a Sharpie and permanent marker include:

• marking evacuation routes
• labeling gas, water, and electric shutoffs
• using it as a splint to stabilize a broken or sprained finger
• writing expiration dates on perishable disaster supplies

Task your team with brainstorming as many possible uses for permanent markers as they can generate in 5-8 minutes. Answers can be silly, serious, or sensible — the point is to have your team be creative and see how useful a simple marker can be for preparedness, response, and recovery!

Tip: Post your creative answers on CARD’s blog — one entry will receive a surprise preparedness gift!

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For safety and preparedness enthusiasts, Halloween offers great opportunities. Many popular Halloween items are excellent for preparing people and making facilities safer — especially for evacuations in the dark or when there are power failures. A fun preparedness task for everyone on your team is to be on the lookout for great sales and inventive uses for: lightsticks, reflective tape, glow-in-the-dark paint or appliqués, and reflectors.  All of these items can be used to help people navigate more safely in the dark or just feel more comfortable when the lights go out.

Other excellent Halloween items include voice amplifiers and recorders. Being small enough to fit under masks and costumes, these small devices make excellent evacuation aids.

Task everyone to make use of the post-Halloween sales to stock up on some of these great safety items.

Tip: Check out the huge Halloween SuperStores — they often have awesome sales on some slightly dented or imperfect items!

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Every year billions of dollars of products and services are sold using commercials. In one minute or less, companies use words, images, and music to tell a story designed to encourage consumers to feel something, think differently, and take action.  Whether or not you currently have a “commercial” for your preparedness program, you can reap the benefits of thinking about how to share your safety effort in 60 seconds.

Poll your team to find two or three commercials that most of you have seen and enjoy. Dissect the best commercial to determine what makes it memorable, and then stretch your brains around how you could use the same techniques to promote your preparedness programs. Have fun, act it out, and video tape your efforts!

Tip:  Check out the Clio Awards or search for “best commercials” for more great samples.

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