06/04/10

Next Meeting:

Tues., Sept. 14, 
7:00-8:30pm, Classroom 18/19

Welcome to the St. Augustine Church's Emergency Shelter Operation

St. Augustine Parish Hosts Red Cross Shelter Operations Training Course

Thanks to all the parishioners who were able to attend Red Cross Shelter Operations Training Course at our parish on Wednesday evening, April 14, 2010. 20 parishioners attended, an excellent turn-out for a Wednesday evening. This 4-hour training class qualifies participants to be Red Cross emergency shelter staff workers.

Alberto Torres, a St. Augustine shelter team member, as well as representing the Hispanic Community at St. Augustine's, and the Parish Council, served as interpreter for the Red Cross instructor. He and the instructor were well received by the participants. To our knowledge, this was the first time the Shelter Operations course has been presented as bilingual. The St. Augustine shelter team supported the class by providing a demonstration of how the team uses our parish building space to operate an emergency shelter.

We hope that you, as new Shelter Operations graduates, will stay connected to our St. Augustine shelter team. We look forward to your participation to build your shelter skills, and trust you will respond to our call for help, should the Red Cross call on St. Augustine Parish to open an emergency shelter.

You are very welcome to attend our team meetings (the next one is Tuesday, May 11th, 7:00-8:30 PM in classroom 18/19). Look for announcements in the parish bulletin (Justice & Peace section) and check out the latest information on the Emergency Shelter link to the Parish Website (this page); (save it as a Favorite Link). Also, contact the team through Paul at any time (paulbedard42@verizon.net); or call Paul 751-0007 or the Parish Office (275-7962): ask for Katharine Anderson or Fidel Rubio.

Thanks and Peace,
Paul

Thanks to the St. Augustine Shelter Team and Parishioners

They participated in the Red Cross Disaster Simulation Exercise on March 13, 2010 at Bon Air Baptist Church. The shelter team supported the Bon Air Baptist shelter team as co-hosts for the exercise. The Red Cross requested St. Augustine support, as the Bon Air shelter team did not have prior shelter experience. This was the largest exercise ever conducted by the Red Cross in Virginia, as over 90 shelter workers from shelter teams across the region and 200 volunteers who played the role of evacuees, participated in the exercise.

Thanks to the St. Augustine shelter team for your sterling performance. You had a distinct challenge in organizing and managing a shelter team of 90 members in two shifts supporting 200 clients. The surge at 9:00 AM was massive, followed by another at shift change at 12:00. You handled the initial surge of shelter team members and clients extremely well, as well as the second influx of team members and clients. Kudos to shelter team members who managed registration, health and mental health, shelter operations, food service, information and communications; and to John Callear who managed logistics support for the Red Cross. The Red Cross has a high regard for your expertise, well earned over these past three years of participation in their annual shelter exercises, and confirmed again by your performance this year.

Shelter Planning Notes

2009 Good Neighbor Award
The Red Cross presented its 2009 Good Neighbor Award to St. Augustine Parish and its Emergency Shelter Team at their annual awards ceremony on April 22, 2009.  Here is the citation from the award:

This award recognizes an individual, organization or business outside the American Red Cross that has made a significant humanitarian contribution to the local community in support of the Red Cross. The recipient has demonstrated exceptional initiative in identifying and meeting one or more community needs through actions that resulted in provisions of more effective services to people.

The St. Augustine’s Catholic Church shelter team began working with the Greater Richmond Chapter in 2003 and currently serves as one of the chapter’s primary “go-to” teams when a quick response is necessary.  The members have created their own shelter team manual, organized their response team into specific job tasks and requirements, hold regular meetings to further organize themselves, and participate in exercises and training activities in order to maintain their readiness level.  They have shown their support to our sheltering efforts by recruiting additional members to their team and have trained more than 60 congregation members.

Shelter Task Area Leads 
If we are to effectively organize our planning group to accomplish the necessary planning and to lead the effort when called upon by the Red Cross, we need to have leaders in each of the major shelter task areas. We made the following designations for shelter task area leads:

Meeting Notes & Documentation

Archived Meeting Notes & Documentation (2009 & earlier)