Organizing your neighborhood is a big step that requires many devoted neighbors to accomplish. It truly is like a symphony, many people doing their part is very unifying for everyone, as it takes time, commitment and love for neighbors and friends to make it successful. It is so worth it and so satisfying to work together to plan, and work to accomplish the large feat that is is.
It may take an entire year or more to get everything and everyone in place.
We have used the CERT Training Program (Citizens Emergency Response Team). And that is what you will find on this website. Your local fire department is generally responsible to teach the course to those who are interested in community service. Many updates have made it more accessible.
The CERT Training Course has changed, much of the training is done online and your local city is responsible to hold the hands on classes. Check with them to see when the next class will be offered.
There is a link below for the online portion of the CERT Training Course. This course is extremely valuable as it teaches basic and expanded skills of working together in search and rescue. At a time when we must all work together in the event of an emergency, which can happen any time, knowing and practicing these skills can be the difference for family, neighbors and friends in your neighborhood and beyond as you may experience an emergency in your travels that is an opportunity for you to help through your training for those in need.
My own experience:
On my way home from my last CERT Training Course day, I looked at each home as I drove past them and the sudden realization came to me that we were not prepared as a neighborhood and if we had a large-scale emergency, many would die because most of us had NO training. These were the homes of my neighbors and friends and the current situation was simply not acceptable to me.
I went right home and made a flyer, then made enough copies for my entire neighborhood and delivered it to every home. It said “Your Neighborhood CERT Team Is Here” we will be organizing our neighborhood this year and will be sharing information on emergency preparedness; we hope you will join us.
We would share information we were learning about the many different areas of preparation. From that experience, we realized that the next step was to organize our neighborhood into blocks and to recruit Block Captains.
We used the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints boundary plan, because boundaries are already in place. Most neighborhoods are already divided up into wards. Five or more wards are known as a stake.
*For our purposes we refer to a Ward area as a Precinct and a Stake area as a District.
In our city boundaries, we have 5 entire Districts and 3 partial Districts.
Within those districts, we have about 33 precincts.
Take a look at the next step, Precinct Leader
Organizing Your Neighborhood into Blocks
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