In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

According to a new report, All Volunteer Force: From Military To Civilian Service, a significant percentage of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan would be interested in volunteering in disaster relief efforts here in the U.S..
The report, written by Civic Enterprises, indicated that 91% of veteran respondents would like to address the issue of “disaster relief” as [...]

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Yesterday, as I was searching the website of New York City Department of Health to find a vaccination center location near me to get a H1N1 vaccine I came upon a new citizen volunteer initiative just launched by the City, “Flu Fighters,” as part of its NYC Service program.
According to the “Flu Fighters”/NYC Service web [...]

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With news on H1N1 coming in fast and furious — and from all corners of the world — Mike Coston at Avian Flu Diary highlights the volunteer citizens who are helping to gather and analyze it for their fellow members of the public. In his post “Drinking From The Fire Hose,” Coston writes:
“With flu season [...]

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CaliforniaVolunteers is providing a useful web page with a list of ways the public can help in the state’s response to the wildfires. The site, www.californiavolunteers.org/index.php/Disaster_Volunteering/detail2/, offers this short overview:
Due to dangerous wildfire conditions, please do not travel to the areas affected by the fires without explicit instructions from a qualified emergency response organization. In [...]

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As Tropical Storm Danny moves up the East Coast and the nation marks the 4th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it is a good time to mention a robust volunteer program called SkyWarn. I have wanted to highlight this citizen preparedness opportunity since being reminded of the program by the new (and helpful) Citizen Corps Twitter feed [...]

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As part of the Obama Administration’s voluntarism initiative, the United We Serve summer service program launches today. It will conclude with the National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11.
You can participate in United We Serve events across the nation this summer by visiting the new White House website, Serve.gov (http://www.serve.gov/).  To encourage participation in [...]

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced a new initiative, NYC Service, to increase volunteering in the Big Apple. Emergency preparedness is one of the program’s six priority areas. ”The NYC Service program has three main goals,” according to the City’s press release, “channel the power of volunteers to address the impacts of the current [...]

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As someone now benefiting from periodic transfusions, I’ve been promoting the importance of blood and platelet donations. I am also always on the lookout for innovative consumer marketing approaches in the preparedness area. So, I wanted to highlight two ideas I heard about recently.
First, I learned that the New York Blood Center has a ‘frequent [...]

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One good way for private citizens and businesses to get involved in the nation’s homeland security effort is through InfraGard. I applied for membership last year and recently joined.
According to its website, Infragard is: 
“an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent [...]

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