Being prepared for life’s disasters, can help get us thru many storms.  Learning to be prepared as a youth impacts you for a lifetime.  

The Harlan County Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent and the Harlan County Emergency Management Director had the opportunity to share MyPI Kentucky’s 4-H Youth Preparedness Initiative program with 15 Harlan County High School students.  These students applied to be accepted into the after-school program to learn more about disaster preparedness and how to react during those events.  During the 17 session course, students responded to disaster scenarios where they developed experience to face issues and leadership skills thru the Citizen Emergency Response Team (CERT) curriculum.  Each week, they acquired a new skill set that included disaster preparedness, medical operations, search and rescue, weather awareness, fire safety, and CPR and AED usage.  Also, Students interacted with professionals in the fire service, public safety, emergency management and medical response and discovered career opportunities.  As part of the certification process, each student had to help their family build an emergency preparedness kit they also had to identify and teach six other families how to build an emergency preparedness kit.  Due to this course, 105 families created emergency preparedness kits to aid each of them when the time comes.  These 15 students gained valuable life skills thru leadership development.

In May 2022, a follow-up was held with 12 of the 15 students that graduated from this program.  It was obvious the impact was great in the things that they learned.  One student said that the teamwork that was instilled during the program, allowed him in decision making during his current job.  He stated he learned to work as team and that has helped him.  Due to this program, one student joined a local fire department, as a junior member, and another has received his Emergency Medical Technicians license.  A student listed that learning the differences between a weather watch and warning has been helpful.  One student stated that she was able to help her employer apply smoke detectors in the correct locations, due to the information learned in this program.  A student's parent also discussed how their child helped them in placing smoke detectors within their home.  These are just a handful of success stories that were shared due to this program, showing the impact was great.  School administrators have asked for another program of this nature to be held this coming school year.