The American Red Cross State Preparedness Corps is a collaborative effort between the chapters of the American Red Cross acrossNew YorkState. The overarching goal of the program is to provide information and resources to increase individual and community preparedness. Through participation in community disaster education programs,New Yorkcommunities across the state will have an increased awareness on how to prevent, prepare for and respond to disaster situations. Additionally, AmeriCorps members will recruit and train community volunteers and expand relationships with community organizations and local businesses acrossNew YorkState.

To fulfill the goals of the program, member assignments include conducting community disaster education programs to all age cohorts, recruiting disaster volunteers who will respond to local emergencies as part of the disaster action team, coordinating disaster training, helping local chapters develop and implement a spontaneous volunteer management plans, providing critical life saving and disease prevention programs to local youth, identifying partner organizations for shelter agreements, engaging local communities in all areas of emergency preparedness.  

As part of our AmeriCorps team, members are trained through the American Red Cross community disaster education programs, disaster services human resources, CPR/First Aid, youth presentations, and volunteer leadership development.  These trainings serve the dual purpose of preparing our members for disaster response and ensuring our members are equipped with adequate background to train communities in preparedness.  Since the inception of our program in November of 2009,

Though we are a new program, our members have trained 64,322 people across the state.    

Stories of Service:

• With more than 9 million residents in New York City, the need to prepare for emergencies is real. A major aspect of such preparedness is establishing partnerships with local organizations that can support their neighbors when a disaster strikes.  AmeriCorps member now in her second term, Alissa Silverstein does just this with the our Ready When the Time Comes partner program.  Alissa’s service focuses on engaging and training community organizations, schools, non-governmental agencies and local houses of worship to serve as shelter sites. Alissa has trained hundreds of people from varying organizations in both disaster preparedness and disaster response. These individuals are know not only prepared for a disaster but also able to volunteer in times of disaster.  Alissa states, “The role I play in increasing the preparedness and resilience of our region is the most rewarding aspect of my service.  Another large-scale disaster, either natural or man-made, will strike the Greater New York and when that day comes, there will be hundreds of volunteers that will be ready to respond because of the time I have invested into preparing them for action.”

Following the motto “Getting Things Done for America,” our Community Outreach AmeriCorps Teams has taken preparedness to new levels through different preparedness trainings such as: Ready New York, Whales Tales, and Scrubby Bear.  Since our AmeriCorps program began in November 2009, the two different teams have provided training to more than 30,000 residents of New York City.