Good & Ready Seeks to Help Millions of Americans Prepare for Disasters

Regardless of where you live, knowing what to do before, during and after a disaster is a vitally important part of being prepared and can make all the difference when second count. Points of Light has launched Good & Ready, a collaborative preparedness engagement initiative to engage people to prepare themselves, their families and their communities.

I just got an email from my friend, Kellie, we met at the BlogHer conference earlier this year. When we met, she was working with Points of Light and some emergency preparedness partners to launch Good & Ready, an initiative that encourages families to take a few simple steps to be prepared for natural disasters, weather emergencies or unexpected events affecting their homes and communities.

Just a few weeks later, Kellie was stowing her own emergency preparedness kit in the car and evacuating her home in New Orleans as Hurricane Isaac approached the Gulf Coast. She ended up using almost everything in that emergency kit – and came away from the experience even more committed to helping others be prepared themselves.

Now through the end of October, take the Good & Ready quiz online and pledge to take a few simple steps toward emergency preparedness, and you can enter to win prizes like a $500 Target gift card or an emergency preparedness kit. More important – you’ll be taking steps to be prepared for unexpected events, and empowered to help your own communities do the same.

Good & Ready is a year-round online and on-the-ground emergency preparedness initiative led by Points of Light working with core partners Ready.gov, American Red Cross and the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH).

Research shows only one in 10 Americans is prepared to protect themselves, their families or homes in a natural disaster. Good & Ready is designed to help more people become prepared, allowing first responders to focus on the most critical situations. Visitors to the Good & Ready website are encouraged to take a quiz to find out how knowledgeable they are about national disasters, find preparedness projects and trainings in their community, find resources to learn how to create a household emergency plan and kit, find way to help their community prepare through volunteer opportunities, and share their story about preparedness.

National support for Good & Ready is provided by Target and the Allstate Foundation.
Visit Good & Ready to find out how prepared you are, learn how to create an emergency plan, register to get trained or pledge to help others in times of disaster.