“It’s not normal to leave the warmth and comfort of your homes or to miss holidays and birthdays with your families so you can travel to a disaster to manage spontaneous volunteers,” said Tony Russell, Superintendent of the Emergency Management Institute (EMI), as he welcomed 100 Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) Executive Directors and Points of Light Affiliates to their first joint training conference. “So turn to each other and say, ‘I’m not normal.’ But in a disaster, we in government could never do what we do without what you do. Thank you for that.”
The groups came together to share experiences and lessons learned from the response to Hurricane Sandy and to attend an EMI training called Management of Spontaneous Volunteers in Disasters. Kellie Bentz, Director, Disaster Services, Points of Light and Kelly DeGraff, Director, CNCS Disaster Services, gave an overview of the 3-day conference. Next, participants interacted with 9 CNCS Executive Directors, Points of Light affiliates, and partners who managed spontaneous volunteers during the Sandy Response and Recovery. Called Hurricane Sandy – Volunteer Response Center (VRC) Fact or Fiction!, the panel was moderated by Julie Blanciak, a Voluntary Agency Liaison (VAL) from FEMA Headquarters.
After panel members briefly described the VRC operations each one handled following Sandy, members of the audience answered 17 Fact or Fiction questions and discussed them with the panel. For example, the first question: “Every region of the country has a State agency, nonprofit, Tribal, or faith-based organization that is responsible for operating a VRC during times of disaster” was fiction, which the audience answered correctly. “This is a hope and a dream,” noted Bruce Bailey, Executive Director of AmeriCorps St. Louis. “Before we can make this a reality, we need to talk about the kinds of relationships that must be built among voluntary organizations and government agencies at all levels before a disaster.”
The class involved a few hours of theory and discussion, followed by a 3-hour VRC simulation. During the exercise, half of the participants worked as VRC staff while the others role played people coming to volunteer following a hurricane. The pace was fast but Lead Instructor Merrilee White, from Volunteer Florida, kept the pressure up. “We would rather have them make mistakes and learn here than when they are doing this in the field,” she said.
Dianne Walbrecker, EMI Course Manager, explained that the value of the training will be magnified in the future. “We will be offering a video teleconference (VTC) Train-the-Trainer to these participants so they can work with their State, Tribal, and local emergency management trainers to deliver this course all across the country. This type of force-multiplier effect has benefits that can improve assistance offered to disaster survivors from the Whole Community.” To learn more about the course, contact her at Dianne.walbrecker@fema.dhs.gov.