Introducing
The Damascus Emergency Preparedness Team's

Good Heart Program

A Role for Places of Worship, Local Service Clubs
and Neighborhood Associations
in Community Emergency Preparedness

The purpose of the Good Heart Program is to organize places of worship, local community service clubs such as Lions and Rotary, and neighborhood associations to serve their memberships and neighborhoods by enabling and equipping them to provide leadership, communications, shelter, food, human resources, and facilities with backup electrical power in times of disaster or community emergency.

Organizations joining the program are asked to take responsibility in disaster and emergency situations for designated neighborhoods or areas, or those surrounding them. In effect, such organizations have two memberships: 1) their regular memberships and 2) their potential emergency memberships.

Why places of worship, service clubs and neighborhood associations?

Recognized pre-existing leadership structures

Most such groups already have staffs and/or experienced volunteers. Many of those efforts most needed in a community emergency are already being performed at some level by these groups, and thus they and their memberships constitute already existent organizational entities ready to be activated and led by recognized community leaders. There is also an inbuilt connection to the larger community because in many communities the pastors, ministers, rabbis, imams and lay leaders, as well as club and organization hierarchies and committees, are already likely to comprise a high percentage of community leadership and opinion leaders. It is these pre-existing organizational leadership structures that are the most valuable assets that these groups can offer to a community in need.

Places of worship especially are the most likely institutional facilities already present in many neighborhoods. Many places of worship are equipped with kitchens and storage for stockpiles of food and blankets and — unlike schools that have similar facilities — the personnel who might bring these facilities to life are more likely to be close living neighbors in the community.  Service clubs and neighborhood associations have less physical structure, but have the potential to offer similar personnel support.

Existing budgets and fund-raising experience

Joining the Good Heart Program gives the participating organizations another reason to seek financial and in-kind contributions for a purpose that is understandable, immediate, and visible. It also provides a perfect opportunity to expand the fund raising effort to the local neighborhood which the fund raising will serve, and for which the result will be immediately apparent.

Pre-existing community outreach programs to identify at-risk populations

Many participating organizations already have outreach programs to identify community members such as the sick and elderly who might be most at risk in a community emergency.

Ability to identify and categorize the human resources of a congregation

Participating organizations are more likely to know the professional resource skills of their members. Non-human resources can be stored...plans can be laid...but after an emergency occurs the only thing that matters is the ability to organize and bring to bear human resources. In many instances these organizations can perform this function better than many other non-governmental entities.

Moral imperative to exercise a good heart towards neighbors

The concept of a Good Samaritan is common to all faiths and religions, and applicable to all groups. The ability to perform a task is no less important to the mission than the motivation to do a task. Such an all-encompassing effort on behalf of their neighborhood communities serves to motivate residents of neighborhoods to become more involved in their local places of worship, local service clubs or neighborhood organizations. The bond that is created is implicitly good for all.

Groups that agree to join the Good Heart Program are asked to:
• Accept the responsibility for a designated geographical neighborhood.
• Agree to the installation of a back-up generator sufficient to supply electricity for a specified time.
• Agree to configure, where applicable, their physical plant with back-up fuel resources to provide heat to the facility for a specified time.
• Agree to acquire and install a radio with back-up power capable of connecting to the Damascus Emergency Communications Team hub at the local Damascus fire station.
• Agree to undertake an outreach program by canvassing their designated neighborhoods to identify and catalog at-risk populations and volunteer resource skills that could be mobilized during time of disaster or emergency.
• Agree to establish and maintain databases for these at-risk populations and volunteer resource skills that are compatible with those used by the Good Heart Program for ease of program administration, but not necessarily for sharing private information.
• Agree to the storage, where feasible, of designated amounts of potable water, either by storage of small containers or the installation of a large water tank.
• Agree to the storage of designated food stockpiles which can be rotated out annually by being made part of an annual humanitarian contribution.
• Agree to establish a designated Emergency Management Team from their memberships that would include:
1. Neighborhood Outreach Coordinator — the person responsible for organizing congregation members to walk the neighborhoods to knock on doors to interview neighbors and collect the at risk and volunteer information.
2. Emergency Preparedness Coordinator — responsible for the selection, acquisition, installation, and maintenance of emergency equipment, generators, and supplies.
3. Communications Specialist — responsible for installing and maintaining the radio equipment and coordination of the team that would rotate the responsibility for showing up and operating the place-of-worship end of the Community Communication Network.
4. Human Resource Specialist — responsible for maintaining the lists of volunteers and skilled specialists such as medical professionals or those with first aid training — both in the congregation and in the neighborhood — that might be activated to be available in time of disaster or emergency.
5. Food Storage and Preparation Specialist — responsible for organizing and maintaining the water and food bank and supervising volunteers in any food preparation.
6. Team Leader — probably the pastor or spiritual leader of the place of worship, who would be responsible for overall operations of the facility when activated, representative of the place of worship at all Program meetings and forums, responsible for all administrative aspects of the Program, and coordinator/scheduler of all training offered through the Program.

Miscellaneous

The most common contingency planning scenario is one in which the electrical grid goes down. Having a facility in the neighborhood where the lights are on is uplifting in its normality and provides a place where the heat is on, a flush and a shower can be obtained, batteries and cell phones can be recharged, a work area where necessary tasks can be continued after dark, and a lighted and thus safer environment where security can more easily be maintained.

It is understood that many group members would be registered on two or more lists, depending on their place-of-worship, club, association or other affiliation.

People who wish to volunteer in an emergency will have designated places to report locally and hence will not be showing up unwanted at disaster situations to be a distraction to emergency services.

Damascus Emergency Communications Team

This is the key to connecting local neighborhoods at the grassroots level with emergency response efforts at the city, county, state, and federal level. It provides the organizational structure for the program and its administration and thus also connects neighborhood to neighborhood. To the extent it connects information about local needs and local resources, it allows neighborhoods to help neighborhoods.

The Program is implemented at the fire district level because this is dictated by the design of the Damascus Emergency Communications Network, which mandates that the communications hub be in the local fire station.

The purpose of the Damascus Emergency Communication Network exists not only to communicate the needs of the community up the chain of command, but to provide the fire station with a neighborhood-by-neighborhood status report that would establish whether a neighborhood 1) needs help, 2) does not need help, or 3) can contribute help. This allows scarce resources to be efficiently allocated.

Many emergency communications networks with hubs in local fire stations already exist in California communities and serve as excellent models. These networks have established protocols and frequencies that do not interfere with governmental radio networks or other disaster-response communications.

Conclusion

• The Good Heart Program allows for an overall grassroots mobilization of communities and neighborhoods that is not presently existent.
• It takes advantage of the natural desire of communities to self organize to be self reliant, and provides an organizational structure that will allow emergency management officials to more quickly ascertain where needs and resources can best be connected.
• It does not require massive funding, may qualify for outside funding, and in fact enlists community places of worship in a fundraising partnership with their neighborhoods.
• It will provide an opportunity to reach a new grassroots source of volunteers that will be interested in responding because they will be contributing directly to their own neighborhoods and thus their own families.
• It will lead to neighbors meeting in their local places of worship to plan and organize for emergency preparedness for their neighborhoods — necessarily placing places of worship in a community leadership role.
• It enables volunteers in our communities that are moved to show up and be counted, because it provides a local answer to the question “Where will I show up — and who will count?”
• Where applicable (i.e., places of worship) it may qualify for federal Faith-Based Initiative funding.
•It fosters ecumenical cooperation and takes its name from the teaching that it does not matter what religion a person practices, only that they have a Good Heart.
• It provides a structure for places of worship to practice continuing and ongoing compassion to neighbors in need — even in the absence of an emergency or disaster.
• It is worthwhile…it is doable…it is affordable — and it will work, because it harnesses the spirit that makes America great.

For more information, please contact DEPT president Paul Laing at plaing56@verizon.net