Community-Based Cooperative Preparedness Clubs

[Jesse]

Do you take seriously the counsel to produce and store food?
Do you marvel that most of your neighbors don't?
Do you feel like you're in this all alone?

Consider this Scenario:
A big disaster hits (be it the "big" earthquake or an EMP) and transportation and communications are wiped out. Within a day, the grocery stores will be empty. Within a week, roving bands of desperate people will be "canvassing" your area for food. You're ready. You hold up in your home with your guns and ammo and when your home is attacked you have a shoot out with those who would violate your family and your property..

An alternative scenario:
BEFORE a disaster hits, you organize with your neighbors and make plans for patrolling your neighborhood in the event of a disaster. Then, if a roving band of marauders comes, you sound the alarm and ALL your neighbors come with their guns and ammo. The marauding band sees your united front and moves on to easier targets.

Which scenario sounds better to you?

The same principle can be applied to food, fuel, and water production. Life will be better for all if we cooperate, rather than compete, with our neighbors when hard times hit.

Disaster Preparedness Clubs.

The purpose of the Disaster Prep Clubs is to provide a local, in-person forum where club members may act in cooperation with one another to make provisions now for their future temporal needs in cases of society-disrupting natural or man-made disasters. The DPC members in a community or neighborhood would meet to discuss and take cooperative action on preparations they themselves decide are in their mutual best interest. The real magic of a DPC is that it would serve as a self-governing council of neighboring families that could take on such mutually beneficial projects as these:

1. Organizing neighborhood patrols to deter marauders
   were they to spring up in your area following a disaster.
2. Gathering and sharing information on free or low-cost resources which families could use in their disaster preparations. For example, the DPC could inform its members of free sources of water storage containers, surplus crops for bottling, or low-cost sources of alternative heating and cooking fuels.
3. Helping each other identify, learn about, and set up emergency means of production of food, energy, shelter, and maybe even clothing.
4. Implementing a local currency which is proven to counteract the local effects of recessions and high unemployment during economic crises brought on by local, regional, or nationwide disasters.
   (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency)
5. Assisting local widows and struggling young families alike
   to acquire minimal stores of food, water, and fuel.
6. Organizing money-saving group purchases.

These are just possibilities of things a club chapter could do to help each other prepare.

Your Turn!

Now, what ideas do you have that you would like to see your neighbors cooperate on?
Please add your thoughts.

[ssprepper]

I'm glad you mentioned this idea. I've actually thought this would be a good idea as a way to organize those we know in our neighborhood who are also serious about preparedness. As I read your post, I also thought it would be a good idea for the neighborhood to have some of us with a plan who will be ready to take action so there won't be the lag time trying to figure things out. I'm going to take this idea and run with it. There are several families in my neighborhood/ward I'm pretty sure will be ready to organize/band together. At this point I don't have any other ideas as to how this would benefit than you've mentioned. thanks