January 4, 2024 7:00 PM EOC 640 South Franklin, Greenfield

When the oxygen masks drop on an airplane we are taught to put our own on first and then help those around us.

How does your family emergency plan look? Have you looked at it in the past year? Have you even started to put it down on paper? Here is a link for an online family plan. We will go into this plan in detail on January 4th. Bring what you have.

Everyone’s first task in preparing for a disaster, or in responding to a disaster, is to take care of yourself and your family. You will be of little help to those around you if you are distracted by concern for your own family.

So this year, meetings for Hancock County EMA volunteers and COAD are going to focus on the basics:  Make a Plan, Assemble or Update Your Supplies, Make Your Home Safer, and other topics. Since for many of you this will be a review, the format will be more round table discussion than slide show.

Invite your friends and neighbors.

We have been blessed with individual and group contributions as well as grants to support our various programs. Without that support we would not be able to continue our trainings (including CPR/First Aid and others), warming center operations, the Eastern Hancock Outreach and our other community engagement events. We are grateful for that support.

However, we have other regular operating costs that need to be covered as well – accounting, insurance, web site hosting, printing etc. Being an all volunteer organization it is a challenge to sustain a regular fund-raising program. Might you consider a gift to the Hancock County COAD fund at Community Foundation of Hancock County as a part of your year-end giving?

Here is the link to make that contribution online. HancockCOAD.org Just select the MAKE A DONATION button. You can also mail a check to Hancock County COAD at 1517 Bowman Drive, Greenfield, IN 46140.

30-day status report for the warming center.

We have opened 15 nights in the past month. However, we had guests on only 4 of those nights. We have had 7 different individuals come in.

To put things in perspective, the status of our regular guests from the past two years is as follows:

– at least 3 are currently guests of the sheriff

– at least one is staying at Hope House

– at least  7 have been able to find more permanent accommodations.

So we easily could have had 10 or more guests each night.  

Thank you again to our hosts at Boys and Girls Club and the volunteers who have filled shifts so far.  I appreciate your patience as we worked through the details of our new location.