[Community-service] emergency and disaster volunteers

[Everett Gavel]

Hi Denise, and all,

I love the fact that they won't let us do certain 
things, when we can at times do them better than 
someone else whose only supposedly 'better' 
qualification is sight. Sighted world or not, some 
people are still not better, just because they can 
see. It is convenient, though, I'll give that.

I'm part of the Emergency & Disaster Planning 
group here at our local Independence Center. 
Apparently, right now, our IC is the only IC in 
Colorado that has specifically hired someone to 
work with the city & governments regionally, 
regarding evacuations of the disabled and such 
things that go along with the field. This all came 
about due to some issues with evacuations last 
year during the Waldo Canyon Fire. So our guy has 
contacts with our region's newest FEMA reps and 
all that fun stuff. Because this region's rep 
recently got hired to be the head over the 
nation's FEMA people who work with disability orgs 
and the like. So it's fun right now. We might 
actually be able to make significant steps forward 
with the eyebrows that got raised after last 
year's disaster.

In regards to the Red Cross, several years ago I 
went down to the local Red Cross office after 
talking a couple of times on the phone. The phone 
calls went very well and I explained how I would 
be happy to do phone work, computer work, and even 
help with the newsletter. When I got there 
in-person, I believe my blindness changed things, 
though I can't prove it. The woman in charge 
talked a bit, took my contact info, marked down 
the areas I was interested in and willing to help 
with, and we parted ways. Though I called her once 
after that, I've never heard back from her at all. 
She put me off on someone else in charge of the 
newsletter supposedly, but I never heard back from 
either, and the big problem with all this is that 
I did not push it. I let it fall by the curbside, 
and that was my mistake. So in truth it's more on 
me than on them, as I did not advocate well for 
myself, nor push the issue, when it comes right 
down to it.

Denise, please tell Adam I said hello -- and I 
hope you both are enjoying life these days. ;-)


Strive On!
Everett


----- original message ----- 
Well, on the first aid with the Red Cross, they 
didn?t believe I could do it but, my friend Lisa 
and I just advocated for ourselves and it worked. 
There were, however, as you said in your recent 
post, those jobs for which I trained what Red 
Cross never let me do, even though, I knew I could 
do them, such as working in a hurricane shelter. 
So, sometimes it?s good and sometimes it?s bad for 
blind folks.