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Ohio: Local Resources

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Ohio EMA and Ready Ohio

The Ohio Emergency Management Agency runs public outreach through the Ready Ohio campaign, most visibly during National Preparedness Month each September, covering the same core steps as most other states’ campaigns: know your local hazards, build a communications plan, store important documents safely, and sign up for emergency alerts.

Where to find it: ready.ohio.gov.

Ohio State University Extension: Ohio’s version of the other states’ land-grant Extension programs

Ohio State University Extension runs the same category of program as every other state covered on this site, and its Master Gardener Volunteer program is one of the larger, more established ones covered so far.

Scale

More than 3,000 active Master Gardener Volunteers serve across more than 62 Ohio counties, with 618 new volunteers trained in 2024 alone. Certification requires 50 hours of initial training plus 50 hours of volunteer service within the first year, then 20 volunteer hours and 10 continuing-education hours annually to maintain it. An online option, Buckeye Gardener Online, is also available.

Where to find it: mastergardener.osu.edu lists the program by county.

Ohio CERT: a genuine hybrid model

Unlike states covered so far where CERT is either fully decentralized (Texas, Florida) or run directly by one dominant city (New York City, Chicago), Ohio runs an actual statewide program, Ohio CERT, coordinated by Ohio EMA, with active county-level teams operating underneath it, Franklin County (Columbus), Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), and Summit County (Akron) among the established examples.

How the layers fit together

Ohio EMA sets statewide CERT program standards and provides coordination and resources, while individual counties run their own teams and training schedules, in Cuyahoga County’s case, explicitly organized as independent teams with the county emergency management office acting as a resource hub rather than a direct operator.

Where to find it: ema.ohio.gov for the statewide program; search “[your county] CERT” for a local team.

Sources