Skill guide · Community & Mutual Aid

Finding Your Local Prep Community

Tier 4 of this manual is "Thriving," the point where preparedness stops being a household project and starts depending on the people around you. This guide is the "who to actually contact" layer behind that idea: real organizations, most of them already active in your area, that you can join rather than invent from scratch.

Start at the neighborhood level

Map Your Neighborhood (MYN)

A structured, 9-step program for organizing your literal block before anything happens: a meeting where neighbors identify who has useful skills or equipment, who'd need help first (older adults, anyone with a mobility or medical need), and what to do in the first 60 minutes after a disaster. Originated by Washington State's Emergency Management Division and endorsed by the American Red Cross; many counties and cities elsewhere have adopted it directly.

Where to find it: contact your local county or city emergency management office and ask whether they run MYN training and can supply the meeting materials; Washington's Military Department hosts the original program if your area hasn't adopted a version of its own.

CERT (Community Emergency Response Team)

Already covered in depth on this site: free, hands-on disaster-response training run locally in nearly every state.

Where to find it: your state's page in By State lists the specific program and local structure for where you live.

The official channel most people never hear about

Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC)

Federally mandated in every county under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), an LEPC brings together local officials, businesses, and community members to plan for chemical and hazmat emergencies specifically and to keep residents informed about what's stored nearby. Membership and meetings are usually open to the public.

Where to find it: your state's Emergency Response Commission (SERC) maintains the list of LEPCs; EPA's EPCRA page explains the structure and links to state SERCs.

Volunteer networks that already coordinate at scale

National VOAD and your State/Territory VOAD

Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster is the umbrella that coordinates disaster-focused nonprofits, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and dozens of others, so relief efforts don't collide or duplicate. Every state and territory has its own VOAD chapter.

Where to find it: nvoad.org's State/Territory VOAD directory.

American Red Cross

Already cited throughout this site as a source; also a real place to volunteer directly, disaster preparedness education, home fire safety visits, and instructor roles teaching the same skills covered in this manual.

Where to find it: redcross.org's Disaster Preparedness Volunteer page routes to your local chapter.

Team Rubicon

A veteran-led, secular disaster response organization active nationally, from wildfire response to long-term recovery operations.

Where to find it: teamrubiconusa.org.

Join the communication network, not just the radio

ARES / RACES

The Family Communication Plan guide mentions ARES/RACES as a reason to consider ham radio over GMRS, access to organized emergency communication nets, but doesn't cover actually joining one. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is open to any licensed amateur radio operator; the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) registers through local civil defense. Both plug you into a real, organized network that activates when normal communication fails.

Where to find it: for ARES, identify your local Emergency Coordinator or contact your ARRL Section Manager and file form FSD-98; for RACES, contact your local civil defense office or Emergency Operations Center directly.

SKYWARN

NOAA's National Weather Service program for training volunteer severe-weather spotters, nearly 290,000 nationwide. Free training (online or in-person through your local NWS forecast office) teaches you to recognize and report the specific conditions that precede a tornado, flash flood, or severe winter storm, exactly the hazard this manual's own hazard data names as deadliest for this region, before the Weather Service's own radar can always catch it. No amateur radio license is required to join, though many spotters are also ARES/RACES members and report over the air during an active event.

Where to find it: weather.gov's SKYWARN links by state routes to your local NWS office's training schedule.

Faith-based disaster response

Several religious organizations run disaster response networks large enough to matter at a regional scale, open to volunteers regardless of the survivors they're helping.

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief

The third-largest disaster response network in the country by most counts: mass feeding, flood/wind/fire cleanup, water purification, and rebuild work, run through trained volunteers from local churches.

Where to find it: sendrelief.org/southern-baptist-disaster-relief.

Church World Service

A cooperative ministry of 37 Christian denominations coordinating both U.S. disaster response and longer-term recovery support through local interfaith groups.

Where to find it: cwsglobal.org/learn/disasters.

A real, distinct structure specific to this manual's own region

Along the Wasatch Front specifically, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains an official emergency preparedness and welfare structure built into every ward and stake (its local congregation units), including published planning guides, a member skills/equipment inventory, and a list of members who'd need help first, the same categories Map Your Neighborhood covers, run through existing local leadership rather than a separate program to join. This is specific to members of that faith community and coordinated through a member's own ward or stake leadership, not a general public program the way the others on this page are, but it's a genuinely significant, well-documented structure in this exact region and worth knowing about for what it is.

Where to find it: members can start with their own ward or stake leadership; the Church's own Emergency Preparedness manual is published publicly.

Grassroots and informal

Mutual Aid Hub

A searchable directory of informal local mutual aid groups, community-organized and typically less bureaucratic than the programs above. A useful complement to the more official channels, not a replacement for them.

Where to find it: mutualaidhub.org.

Pick one

The same rule that applies everywhere else in this manual applies here: one real connection beats six half-considered ones. If your neighborhood has no organization at all, Map Your Neighborhood is the fastest way to create one. If you want a recognized skill credential alongside the connections, CERT does both at once. If you already have a radio, ARES turns it from a household tool into a community one. Pick the one that matches where you already are, not the one that sounds most impressive.

Whichever you pick, put the actual arrangement in writing once you've made one, even an informal one with two neighbors. The Mutual Aid Agreement is a real, printable template for exactly that: who brings what, what's owed back, and a simple way to settle a disagreement, before you're relying on a memory of a conversation instead of something you both signed.

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