Everyone can go...somehow

As the 9-11 Anniversary has, for the most part, arrived, members of the Chasing4Life team have found themselves in Joplin, Missouri. The airwaves are literally full of images, videos, recordings, TV specials and talk shows all focusing on the events that shook this country ten years ago, and the atmosphere in Joplin is one of resolve, of remembrance, and of hope.
The country has certainly come together, at least mentally, as the media and the calendar have offered us all something to focus on together.
But there is a lot more going on in this country right now other than an anniversary.
It is this weekend that Joplin will focus on service, with volunteers in the thousands descending on the city to work and to rebuild. It is this weekend that Texas will continue to battle against hell's flames in a drought-stricken nightmare. It is this weekend that already-weary eyes along the eastern seaboard will watch tropical storms that will bring more wind, more storms and more misery. It is this weekend that states like Pennsylvania will hope no lives are lost in flood waters as residents watch their dreams and hopes wash away.
It is this weekend that we need to do more than watch the 9-11 specials on cable. It is this weekend that our efforts need to be more than hanging that flag on the porch. It is this weekend that churches need to do more than add The Star Spangled Banner to their morning worship service. It is this weekend that we need to realize the call to act, to support, to go.
Over the course of the last several years, we have seen so many disaster strike this country, and yet, as our teams watched these disasters, the reality was always present that the support was not there to always respond.
Social media has become a great revealer.
We watch as our friends, our families and even some of our partners have posted continually disaster after disaster about how they "feel horrible", how their "hearts break" and how they "wish they could help", but yet the pleas for support go ignored. Please directed at those specific people...
Now, I realize not everyone can go. I realize not everyone can give. I also realize everyone knows someone.
Two weeks ago we received a call from a woman that has, for a full year, told us repeatedly she was putting together support efforts for our response teams... she called because she was finally caught up in a natural disaster and wanted to know if we were deploying and was requesting help. How were we to get there? We had the volunteers ready to go, but due to lack of support had no ability to deploy them...
One of our teams have been inundated with requests to respond to a ravaged area, but those requesting the deployment, when asked to assist us in finding housing when we arrived, seemed almost indignant because we asked.
One of our partnering organizations has never hesitated to call us around the clock to have us assist them in monitoring severe weather for them during deployments, but yet for 6 months we have awaited simple returned calls regarding our requests for help from them.
All this is to bring up a point.
While Chasing4Life is a wonderfully successful educational organization that provides life-saving educational programming across the United States, the Chasing4Life Disaster Response Teams are made up completely of volunteers. The gear carried and used by our members is paid for out-of-pocket or from companies that believe in giving back to their communities. Most of our members have jobs, families and other responsibilities just like everyone else, but everytime a disaster occurs or looms on the horizon, they call in, make themselves available, and then they wait... for you to help them use their training and passion.
And as to that training; these volunteers have become or are becoming highly trained responders because when not deploying, they are enrolled in courses, taking classes and attending training exercises.
As we enter this 9-11 Anniversary weekend and a weekend of service in Joplin, it is time to ask yourself: "What have I done to respond? What have I done to ensure that there are teams that will deploy when it happens to me? What have I done to help others go in my stead?
It doesn't have to be C4LDRT that you choose to assist, but it has to be something, somebody, some organization. To sit and watch events unfold day after day on the television without responding SOMEHOW is not how America was formed. It is not how it grew. It is not how lives were saved during Katrina. It was not how lives were saved during the 9-11 attacks. It was not how lives were changed in the Iowa floods.
Everyone can go somehow.

Are YOU ready for the ride of your life?

C4L announces new campaign in Dorothy tradition

Hudson, IA. Chasing4Life has become a leader in disaster preparedness education across the United States over the years and nobody will contend that we owe much of this growth and popularity to “Dorothy”.
For several years, Chasing4Life’s founder, Eddy Weiss, toured the country in Dorothy, a fully outfitted storm chase vehicle visiting hundreds of libraries, schools, churches and organizations with a message about disaster preparedness.
Three years ago this month, Dorothy was donated to the Sci-Tech Children’s Museum in Aurora, Illinois where she still continues to thrill and to teach.
The popularity of Dorothy and the connection that she made was incredible. Dorothy became an icon that was recognized by families across the country and the Chasing4Life office still receives letters for her every month.
2011 has been a year of disasters like none we have ever seen in the United States and many have referred to this year as “the ride of their life”. It has been statements like this that have inspired a new preparedness campaign to follow that of Dorothy’s.
Chasing4Life is excited to announce that in January of 2012, we will launch Chasing4Life’s “8 Seconds”. This new preparedness and training campaign will feature new programs with a new theme. You will see new instructors, a broadened scope of programming, and a tremendous increase in trainings for fire departments, emergency management agencies, law enforcement agencies and disaster response organizations.
Like the original Chasing4Life “Dorothy” campaign, this campaign will have its motorized spokesperson as well; our new Mobile Command Unit “8 Seconds”.
The campaign is inspired by how quickly lives were changed in 2011 and by the drama and popularity of rodeo; particularly bull riding.
“Our family has always loved the rodeo,” explained Weiss recently. “As the year progressed and we watched these disasters unfold, interviewed the victims and aided in recovery, we were overwhelmed at how fast lives were changed by disaster. It can all be gone in less time than it takes a rodeo star to win a buckle…less than 8 seconds!”
The new campaign will be themed around the “8 second ride” in bull riding.
“A bull rider is judged on many things, but it all comes down to their actions during that 8 second ride…and of course, they have to stay on the whole 8 seconds!” said Weiss.
“Disasters are often like that bull charging out of the chute,” he explains. “It is raw power, and it is just you against him at that point. It all comes down to how hard you have trained and how determined you are.”
The new campaign will feature the release of a special edition of the “Red Book”, a disaster preparedness guide that Chasing4Life has sold for the last two years. New DVD’s will be available as well as Chasing4Life will focus more on training programs for agencies and response teams as well.
At the center of it all?
The new Mobile Command Unit will begin to go through modifications over the next two months to make it a vehicle that rivals Dorothy according to Chasing4Life staff. This vehicle will be used by the Chasing4Life Disaster Response Team (C4LDRT) in disaster response deployments, but will also make special appearances at events, festivals, fairs, shows and conferences in the tradition of Dorothy’s travels.
The command unit will feature a rodeo theme and is a converted ambulance that will be used to set up and monitor disaster response operations, severe weather situations and mobile communications.
“We’ve got our boots on and we’re ready to ride,” stated Brandi Hodgen, the Chasing4Life coordinator that will operate the unit in the field. “We cannot wait to roll this out and start this new campaign. The message is great, the theme is great and we think the people will love it”.
Plans are being made to partner with new sponsors for the new campaign and the staff at Chasing4Life is already talking about new coloring books and the possibility of a music video as the campaign progresses into the new year.

Historic Nationwide Restoration Tour of National 9/11 Flag to end this September 11, 2011 in Joplin, Missouri

When 9/11 happened, it did not only happen in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

9/11 happened in America.

It is for that reason that The New York Says Thank You Foundation announced today that it will end its historic 50-state restoration tour of The National 9/11 Flag on September 11, 2011 in Joplin, Missouri –the site of one of the nation’s deadliest tornadoes in history which took the lives of 160 people and destroyed 40% of the town this past May 22.

“By going to Joplin with The National 9/11 Flag on the 10th

Anniversary of 9/11, we will be making a powerful statement that New Yorkers will never forget what people from small towns and big cities all across America did for us in our time of need,” stated Jeff Parness, founder of New York Says Thank You Foundation. “By letting the folks in Joplin place the final stitches in The National 9/11 Flag and by letting them heal this national treasure, it will make an historic statement that ‘we are all in this together’ and that the resilience and the compassion of the American people is so much greater than any act of terror or catastrophic act of nature.”

About The National 9/11 Flag

Destroyed in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11 and stitched back together seven years later by tornado survivors in Greensburg, Kansas, The National 9/11 Flag has become recognized as the modern day version of the Star Spangled Banner.

Over 200 Million Americans have experienced The National 9/11 Flag through national and local TV coverage, public displays in small town gatherings, and major cultural and sporting events. The flag has been stitched by soldiers and schoolchildren who survived the shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas, by WorldWar II veterans on the deck of the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor, by the family of Martin Luther King Jr., by Members of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, and by thousands of everyday service heroes nationwide.

On President Lincoln’s Birthday, a piece of the flag that Abraham Lincoln was laid on when he was shot at Ford’s Theater was stitched into the fabric of The National 9/11 Flag. In May 2011, The National 9/11 Flag was presented as the official flag for The Kentucky Derby. On August 9, 2011 The National 9/11 Flag was stitched at the base of Mount Rushmore.

Currently on a journey across America through the 10th Year Anniversary of 9/11, the goal of The National 9/11 Flag Tour is to display this historic flag at leading venues nationwide, to empower local service heroes in all 50 states with the privilege of stitching the flag back to its original 13-stripe format, and to inspire 300 million Americans with the flag’s rich visual history in order to deepen our sense of citizenship and national pride and bolster the spirit of volunteerism on the 9/11 Anniversary and year-round. When complete, The National 9/11 Flag will become a part of the permanent collection of the National 9/11 Memorial Museum being built at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan.

“Our hope and our prayer is that for generations to come, The National 9/11 Flag will tell the story of not just what happened on 9/11, but was also happened on 9/12 – when Americans came together to help one another recover from disaster. It is that spirit of humanity, kindness, and volunteerism that united us on 9/12 that we hope to celebrate in Joplin, Missouri this September 11,” added Parness.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2011 DISPLAY & STITCHING CEREMONY

The National 9/11 Flag will be displayed by Joplin first responders, local residents, and by disaster survivors from across the United States in a silent tribute at 8:58AM CST through 9:28AM CST at Cunningham Park at the corner of 26th Street & Maiden Lane in Joplin, Missouri. The two times correspond to the exact moments that the South Towers and North Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed. From there, The National 9/11 Flag will be processed to Leggett & Platt Auditorium on the campus of Missouri Southern State University where the flag will serve as the backdrop for a 9/11 Memorial Service beginning at 10:30AM. Following the Memorial Service the community will be invited to place the final stitches to repair The National 9/11 Flag at which point material from American flags that survived the Joplin tornado will be sewn into the fabric of The National 9/11 Flag. Stitching will be open to the public until 5:00PM.

It is with great pride that we can say Chasing4Life will be represented by some of its staff at this historic event. We will be posting pictures upon our return.