Are you interested in serving your community in emergency response or during community events? As part of the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC #11) initiative to re-establish the Lamoille County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), LEPC#11 invites interested community members to attend a CERT Meeting on Monday, March 28th at 6pm. The meeting will be held at Johnson State College in Bentley Hall, room 207. This meeting will serve as an introduction to CERT and provide interested community members an opportunity to establish a plan to move forward in rebuilding the Lamoille CERT Team. CERT provides a great opportunity to serve your community, receive free training that will help your family and neighbors stay safe, and support our first responders in times of need.

In 2003 Lamoille County led Vermont by developing the first CERT in the state. Citizens in our region received training on emergency response, disaster assistance and safety, and served as a support team for emergency responders at fires, floods, other natural disasters, and planned community events. CERT members were trained to assist with a number of emergency response tasks including shelter management, traffic control, recording damages, and disaster recovery clean up. The Lamoille CERT team was activated a number of times and was well regarded for the assistance they provided. In the past few years the team did not maintain enough members to continue providing emergency response support.

Please join us on March 28th for the Lamoille County CERT Meeting! LEPC#11 looks forward to the opportunity to reestablish this important part of our community's emergency response. If you are not able to attend the upcoming meeting, but are interested in learning more about the Community Emergency Response Team, please contact Lamoille CERT at lamoillecert@gmail .com or visit www.demhs.vermont.gov/programs/cert for more information on CERT programs.