Emergency Preparedness

Young Living recently had a great training meeting about emergency preparedness, with Marsha from Altius. Shortly after that meeting, I got a handout in my kids school folders with a request for an emergency kit for each of them to keep at school: a granola bar, bottle of water, fruit snacks of some sort, crackers, and a short note and family photo. Seems like preparedness is a hot topic at the moment!

I got to thinking more about planning ahead and the peace of mind that could bring if something DID happen. For my kids, can you imagine being in a school and trying to comfort all those kids in the event of an emergency? And if they each had a snack, some water, and a family photo, how much easier would it be to keep them calm?

I recall the night I had a spark plug pop out of the cylinder in my car one night on my way back from Park City. I was on I-15 near American Fork and it was snowing hard and I heard this loud pop under the hood and this thunderous noise. I pulled over, not knowing a thing about engines, and wouldn't you know it that I was wearing a dress and four inch stiletto heels? A pair of jeans and some old boots stashed in the trunk would have gone a LONG way.

So Marsha and Angie gave us all a good start. But for more information, the American Red Cross has a great site with lots of ideas as http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_500_,00.html and the government site at www.ready.gov is a great resource as well. Locally, there are lots of businesses that are fully devoted to kits and supplies for disaster preparedness. If you don't want to think about compiling your own kits, they have some great ready made resources available at reasonable prices and are a quick solution.

Also, did you ever stop to think about Young Living products that would have a place in your emergency kit? Balance Complete and Power Meal have an excellent nutrition profile and are easily/quickly made. Think of the potentially life sustaining energy that this product could have in the event of a disaster. We always think about being in a shelter somewhere, bored and worried, when in reality we could be assisting in rescue efforts (perhaps for our own loved ones!). This would be light-weight and very portable as well.

Many of the essential oils have some properties that would make them very useful. Lemon oil can be used to cleanse and flavor questionable drinking water, lavender on burns, clove for its antiseptic quailities, peppermint or orange to give yourself a mental boost. Get creative with our great product line and integrate some of these things into your kit!

Young Living provided basic first aid kits to attendees at the last wellness meeting and mine promptly went into the trunk of my car. I used to keep a first aid kit in my trunk and was shocked at how often I used it for minor emergencies at trips to the park or camping. Take a look at some of these websites and get dialogue going with your loved ones about a plan. Once you get some ideas, it's not difficult to recognize an item here and there that could be useful in your kit.

Also, with the holidays upon us, these kinds of kits make very thoughtful gifts for anyone on your list. You can spend as little or much as you like, even getting some basic items into a plastic bag with a list of suggested future additions. It will help the recipient to know what to buy and add to the kit.

Happy Holidays and here's to hoping those kits go unused as long as possible!