If you are one of our closest neighbors to the office, you may notice some brand new advertisements all around Plaza Midwood and NoDa for our home canning workshop next weekend, Yes We CAN! If you would like to purchase a ticket, you can click here and join us in the fun! However, regardless of your ability to attend, we would love for you to join in our fun and take selfies with our posters when you find them out and about, and please post them on Twitter and Instagram! Feel free to tag me (Twitter: @HOCDisasterPrep; Instagram: @robcoy715), Hands On Charlotte (Twitter: @HandsOnCLT; Instagram: @handsoncharlotte), or just come up with a slew of fun hashtags. We know we posted these flyers in some pretty nocturnally active neighborhoods as well, so we're excited to see what you creative spirits out there can come up with for a wacky picture to help us spread the word!
One of many posters up near the Common Market Plaza-Midwood!
Our poster in the heart of NoDa!
We hope to see many of you at our course, and we hope to see just as many if not more pictures out there in the Insta/Twitter-sphere. As always, we hope this finds you well, and if my reach of a title wasn't enough to let you know I've had a recent alt-J obsession, here's some funky waves for your day.
I really can't emphasize enough the importance of a 72-hour emergency food and water supply. In the event of an unexpected disaster and with the possibility of having to shelter in one's home, you really may not have time or the ability to go out and stock up on supplies before it is too late. And for any of you who have lived here for an extended period of time, you understand how quickly your neighborhood grocery store will run out of bread and milk, a phenomenon I may never understand.
To help make this process of stock-piling your three (or more!) day supply a little bit easier and a whole lot more fun, Molly and I will be hosting a home canning class on Saturday, March 28, from 10 AM - 1 PM at Friendship Trays. The class will include an overview of the processes involved in canning your own produce and food, a walk-through of canning a few fun and easy recipes, a delicious lunch provided by Friendship Trays, and all the corny jokes and wacky dance moves Molly and I can muster. I promise quite the good time, and it's our way of making emergency preparedness a little bit weirder and a lot more fun.
And because Molly and I can't make it through a day without singing Moulin Rouge tunes across the office, enjoy the infamous can can scene from one of our favorite movies. And as always, stay safe, y'all!
This weekend, Molly and I had the immense pleasure of helping out the National Guard with their Vigilant Guard exercises. If you happened to be driving down Brookshire Boulevard this weekend and saw crazy protestors in bright vests screaming outside the water treatment plant, it was us. We were so happy to include our Charlotte-Mecklenburg Volunteer Emergency Support Team in our efforts as well, and I believe everyone had quite the wild and wonderful experience. If you've ever wanted an excuse to make a ruckus and yell at your Armed Forces and pretend to get arrested and fight against riot gear, let me know; I'll include you in our plans next time.
It was a beautiful weekend to volunteer in Charlotte!
Zondra, Molly, Tara, and Shannon walked into a day of shenanigans on Saturday!
We also had volunteers helping out in the Emergency Operations Center at a different site. There, representatives from all sorts of government and non-government organizations had to practice their reaction given actions by the crazy protestors at the water treatment plant and different scenarios at other sites across town.
Here, Shannon, Zondra, Molly and I told the National Guard that we could lay down forever until we were able to speak with the appropriate personnel about chemicals in the water. Shannon even braided Molly's hair for a while as we laid in the streets!
Zondra berated the guards at the back fence for close to an hour, even throwing her legs under the fence as she tried to sneak through that way!
We didn't just protest, though. There were all sorts of crazy hijinks we were able to pull. At one point, Zondra faked a heart attack to initiate the medical team's response from another location, and Tara had an asthma attack, couldn't breathe, and a National Guard soldier had to initiate CPR. Thanks for taking one for the team, y'all!
Tara helping the National Guard walk through whatever steps necessary to save a life whenever needed, and I think she enjoyed every minute of it!
On Sunday, we brought in a whole new crew of protesting volunteers. Crystal, Kaitlin, Zach, and Chris joined us to fight against soldiers in riot gear, and we had some more nontraditional methods (like laying down in front of the riot gear and rolling toward them). I was even able to find a spot to break in after some good hassling, and I was immediately arrested.
It happens to the best of us!
All in all, it was really quite the exciting weekend and reminder that AmeriCorps' Community Emergency Preparedness Corps really can provide the time of your life. If you have any questions about what Molly and I do, or if you would like to become involved with our volunteer emergency support team and attend an upcoming training to join our ranks, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at rob@handsoncharlotte.org. It was certainly a weekend I will remember forever, and I am glad to have been able to share that experience with our volunteers.
The organizations involved at our site included both Army and Air Force National Guard, CM-VEST, Charlotte Fire Department, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Sheriff's Office, and staff from the water treatment plant. There were many, many more back at the Emergency Operations Center!
And, because a good protest isn't complete without some good Twisted Sister (Have any of you seen Rock of Ages??), enjoy this for your day, and please, join us next time and sing with us at our next faux protest. It's the time of your life, I promise. Stay safe, y'all!
I hope this finds you well on this dreary and wet day. One day every week, Molly and I have the immense pleasure of working out of the Charlotte American Red Cross office. One of our recent endeavors in our time here is helping out with their Disaster Action Team.
If you don't already know, the Red Cross will sometimes send out volunteers from their office to see how best to address the needs of individuals and familied affected by house fires. These volunteers will actually show up to the fire scene, assess what the individual or family's immediate needs are, and connect them with solutions to assist them in getting through the immediate aftermath.
So happy that I get to work with this girl every week!
As fate would have it, the Red Cross is actually looking to expand this program. Should you read this blog and happen to get your blood boiling in all the right ways when you think about helping people out in times of disaster, please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail at rob@handsoncharlotte.org. I am really quite excited to be joining in on this venture, and would love to give back with some of you as well. I don't know if you've noticed, but Molly and I really don't know how not to make everything we do into a positive experience and have a great time while helping others.
As always, stay safe, y'all, and enjoy some tunes (and coffee, if you're like me) to make it through this rainy afternoon!
As you may have noticed, we try to find some interesting and engaging material regarding emergency preparedness outside of the more typical hurricane/tornado/earthquake/fire safety tips. While those are all certainly important and applicable and I'm going to tell you to have a 72-hour emergency supply in your home until the cows come home, I would also like to raise a valid point I found in an article on Forbes this morning: the importance of cybersecurity emergency preparedness.
Many of you are probably familiar with the recent cybersecurity breach surrounding Sony's release of The Interview (now available on Netflix, may I note), as well as the release of credit card information in breaches at Target and other stores.
While many places focus on being ready in the case of a loss of power or hardware, or for the equally real threat of a fire or earthquake, Ray Rothrock points out in this article published on Forbes.com that many places do not have much-needed plans for how to deal with breaches of cybersecurity. In his piece, Rothrock points out many of the parallels between traditional natural disaster emergency preparedness and what is really needed in a quickly evolving world with perpetually growing electronic capabilities, and by that same token, perpetually growing threats to the cybersecurity of any organization with confidential information.
Even with something as simple as credit card and password information you have stored on your home computer, it can be important to have files backed up on an external hard drive in case of a future hack into your information. However, this risk goes all the way from the home personal computer to retail stores like Target, and banks like the ones on which this beautiful city has such a substantial foundation. It made for a great read this morning, and I definitely recommend it if you have a few minutes to spare some thought.
And since you all know how I feel about getting a little weird, please enjoy some Flaming Lips with your afternoon coffee (or whatever it is you're into around this time of day). After all, it would be quite tragic were the evil robots to win.
This morning, Molly and I had the immense pleasure of joining Charlotte's American Red Cross chapter, the Charlotte Fire Department, and Piedmont Natural Gas to distribute information about fire and natural gas safety, as well as to offer free smoke alarms, to residents in south Charlotte. If you would like a free smoke alarm, or need batteries for the smoke alarm you currently have and you live in a single-family home in Charlotte, please do not hesitate to e-mail either me at rob@handsoncharlotte.org, or Molly at molly@handsoncharlotte.org, and we will be sure to put you in contact with the appropriate person within the Charlotte Fire Department! No time like the present to make sure you have a functional smoke alarm in your home!
Here, the Red Cross, CFD, and PNG told Channel 3 to check your smoke alarms every Daylight Savings Day! It's an easy way to remember to check your alarms every six months. If you're like me, write it in your planner every Daylight Savings Day to make it even easier to remember!
It was great to see people from so many organizations coming together to keep Charlotteans safe!
Again, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about getting a free smoke alarm, and feel free to contact us so we can keep you in the loop if you would like to join future smoke alarm canvassing events! It was a great time, and we met a lot of wonderful people.
As always, stay safe, Charlotte, and enjoy some Doobie Brothers on this chilly night!
In case you haven't signed up already to have the monthly updates sent to your e-mail from the Do1Thing campaign, I would love to take this chance to share with you their March release, which is centered around sheltering.
Many times, emergencies and disasters can be predicted. For example, hurricanes take a while to reach land after forming over water, and snow storms that might require an evacuation to friends' or relatives' houses in lesser affected regions are predicted at least a couple days out as well. However, there are some cases in which one might not have ample time to plan an evacuation, like a tornado that can pop up and allow a very short amount of time to find a safe place.
