# 1682
The Readymom's Alliance, which I've highlighted in this blog many times, including here, here, and here - travel to Atlanta this week and are set up in a booth (# 103) at the 2008 Public Health Preparedness Summit on Feb 19th-22nd.
From the the phprep.org website, this conference is described as follows:
The 2008 Public Health Preparedness Summit is the nation's largest conference for public health and emergency preparedness professionals. This third annual Summit provides attendees the opportunity to participate in cutting-edge workshops, interactive sessions, and round table discussions that are designed to enhance knowledge, increase professional networks, and leave participants inspired.
The Readymom's, as you probably know, promote personal preparedness and have an exhibit they take to health and preparedness conferences.
The Readymom's Alliance has just recently become a non-profit organization and can now accept donations to help offset the expenses of traveling around the country and setting up this display.
While they cover practically every aspect of preparedness, for a pandemic or any other disaster, one of their highlights is showing how a family can begin to acquire a supply of nutritious, and easy to prepare, foods for an emergency.
From the latest Flu Wiki Thread (well worth following the link to read it all), a small sample of some of the information they provide.
"Two Weeks of Food for a Family of Four"
The 2 week basic food box for a family of 4 (full list available here)
- Budget of < $150,
- Approximate nutrition content of 2,000 calories, 40gm protein, 25gm fiber per person per day (more details here)
- long shelf-life
- space saving - fits in 2 boxes as above
- focuses on sustainable rather than short-term crisis-driven preparedness - will need additional 'ready-to-eat' items
- companion non-food prep items (see below) and ideas for alternate fuel or cooking methods.
- addresses the 2 commonest objections - "I can't afford it", and "I've got no room"
The original Readymom herself recently had this to say about their organization:
At each national event we attend, we draw large-scale interest. We have found folks start to refer to us as 'The Moms' booth! People come to our booths, send others to come and visit us, return with someone at their tow, take photographs and sign up for more information and info on how to set up their own community event. We mark that as success with our message.
Being 'Moms', in the truest sense of the word, we have to work our own family schedules around getting to these events. Often having our husbands pick up the slack on the home front (watching the kids, arranging their own work schedules to be home for our kids, preparing family meals, getting the kids to school and their extra activities and more) while we're gone.
It's become a job without pay. What drives us? The fact that we know about something that EVERYONE should know about and don't. We know about something that is possibly a threat to the lives of everyone around us, on a LARGE scale. Some of that threat can be averted, if folks know what to do to prepare. How do you live with yourself, if you have that kind of information and don't share it? I got started with this because I couldn't live with myself. So, here I am. It's that simple --- and yet --- it's that hard. We need help. We need to move this grassroots program along! -k
If you're in Atlanta this week, and plan to attend this conference, stop by booth # 103 and say hello.
I think you'll be impressed by what you see and, more importantly, the people you are going to meet.
