Creating a Family Emergency Plan
A few months ago I received a daunting letter in the mail asking me to be in charge of a Sharing Booth for BYU Women’s Conference. I had no idea what a sharing booth was. Now I do, folks.
I asked 2 friends, Sara Olsen & Wendy Rencher, to be my teammates. And we set out to do our research on our topic, Creating a Family Emergency Plan. Yes, it was a lot of work… like hundreds of hours worth when all was said and done.
All three of us were so grateful for the opportunity.
It was fun.
We helped our families become greater prepared.
Greater peace of mind for me… yep, I’ll take that… thank you.
{p.s. don’t ever stay up till 11 pm working on emergency preparedness stuff… you’ll dream about disasters all . night . long … for days. aaaak! }
We had $0 budget so any funds so we were careful how much we spent on frilly decorations. We did spend $ on the stuff we needed for the kits we put together. But that was all going towards our family prep that we wanted to do anyways. Most of it I already had in the house and it just needed assembling. And then I only had to pay for the few prints/poster. Sara donated the cute chevron table runners. I had been wanting to make a banner to have at home for birthdays, etc. {that was a fun project by the way… I was so glad I did it, though it was very last minute}
We had 5 sections.
1. Emergency Binder… so great. Seriously. Everyone needs one of these. Helpful for every day stuff and definitely for emergencies. We created a handout to be shared online by Women’s Conference. It has oodles of checklists for 72-hour kits, car kit, emergency bin, grab-n-go. Love that cute binder of info.
2. 72-hour kits. I put together an Adult kit. Sara did the teen. Wendy did one for a child. Just to kinda show some ideas. We all did food and water differently so that was interesting.
3. Grab-n-go Lists. Wow. New idea to me. What would I need if we had 5 minutes to evacuate. 30 minutes? We got a nice little list together and now my family needs to practice it to see how realistic it is. When we leave for errands, it seems it takes me 30 minutes just to get 3 littles in the car… and somehow I think we can do it in 5… with a bunch of other important stuff.
4. Disaster Bin & Car Kit. Ummm, why haven’t I had a car kit before now? Best idea ever. It will come in so handy.
5. Educate. We created 2 FHE’s. 1 for Spiritual Preparation. 2 for Temporal Preparation. They are more like resources to be used for many lessons. I loved putting mine together.
In the end… I finally got my 72-hour kits updated. I switched how I thought about food. I decided to put it all together in bins (my friend uses rolling duffle bags which I like). It is stored in the house. Our 72-hour kits are hanging in the garage and I didn’t want the heat to ruin the food. I plan to have the almost expiring food be snacks for general conference. We’ll see how that goes.
Oh – so Thursday was THE DAY! We got to BYU and set up around 10 a.m. We had a lunch (go BYU Brownies!). From 12-3 and from 5-8 we answered questions and chatted with people who came around. It was a good experience.
I’m so grateful for Sara & Wendy. They were optimistic and cheerful. Love those good gals.
It was fun to get to see so many gals from the 3rd ward that we knew years ago who were also doing booths. I ran into a few long-lost acquaintances which brought back some fond memories. I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this booth. I’m also grateful the pressure is off and it’s done.
Back to normal life… whatever that is.
I want to do all of these things!!! It is at the top of my priority list. Is there a link for the binder papers? Good job Heather!
I loved reading about this. Great job Heather! Even though things like this are a ton of work, at least they make you get done something that you have been wanting to get done anyway. Right? Now you have it done and I bet it feels so good. Is everything listed at the sharing station link on the BYU website? I would love to learn more about what you did. My kits are so outdated. Lacys kit still has diapers in it! That tells you how old they are. I have sorely neglected my emergency preparedness these last few years and I need to get back on it! Thanks for the motivation.
Oh, that is all SO beautiful…it reminds me of how I need to update mine…and get a car pack together…oh, my…all your stuff is so cute, great job!!
A girl in my ward did a station too. She also said she was in your ward before the moved to PG. It’s Becky Cope. I would love the info too? I went to the sharing station link and 2013 wasn’t up yet. Good job Heather! You are so awesome!
I, too, would love the information you handed out about the binders, the gran-n-go lists and what you put in the 72 hour kits! Thanks :) !!
I would love a copy of the the handouts!! Thanks for sharing this post!
Here is a link for information on the handouts. http://www.simplyfreshdesigns.com/2013/06/create-a-family-emergency-plan/
You can find more information on the 72-hour kit lists, etc. here… http://www.simplyfreshdesigns.com/2013/06/create-a-family-emergency-plan/
Hey Jolene… You can find info on our sharing station on sfd site… http://www.simplyfreshdesigns.com/2013/06/create-a-family-emergency-plan/ i had an editable file posted down at the bottom with links to the women’s conf handouts.
:)
Heather
I wonder if this link timed out. I cant find the binder information and would LOVE to have it if possible. Thanks,