The American Disaster Relief Club is a student-run club that supports service work as well as aid to disaster victims. The club also raises awareness of preparation strategies for natural disasters that are likely to inflict Palo Alto and the surrounding community, according the the ADR website. ADR started working in January to create the emergency relief cards.

ADR club members will place the emergency cards in teachers’ boxes on Wednesday, June 2. They should be distributed on Thursday during fourth period to all non-senior students, according to junior Nadav Gavrielov, who is the club’s co-president.

The club printed 2500 cards for all students currently enrolled in Paly and for incoming freshman.

The cards include emergency information for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation instructions, emergency position in the event of choking, how to stop bleeding and the recommended ‘stop, drop and roll’ earthquake or aftershock procedure, according to junior Marc Havlik, who is the club’s director of media. He said that the card also includes the phone numbers to various local entities like SafeRide and poison control.

Havlik started designing the disaster cards in January.

“The layout changed a lot,” Havlik said. “Initially, we had larger visual images, but we needed more room to accommodate all the information necessary.”

American Disaster Relief Club members made an informed, collaborative decision about what information should go on the card.

“We spoke to the Palo Alto fire department, we got information from the Red Cross, we consulted with assistant principle Todd Feinberg, who is in charge of Palo Alto High School’s emergency response process,” Havlik said. “We considered what would be most useful for high school students, eventually narrowing it down to the most useful pieces of information.”

The ADR club originally planned to distribute these emergency cards in order to fix the SafeRide number, which is incorrectly listed on the back of students’ identification cards. Although this problem was discovered earlier in the year, it was never corrected.

“We heard about the issue with the SafeRide number at the beginning of the year, and we wanted to help fix that while also getting out other important information,” Gavrielov said.

Junior Alistair Thompson thinks the emergency card is an important resource.

“I think it is a good thing to have,” Thompson said. “People need to know what to do in these kinds of situations.”

The Disaster Relief Club hopes that the cards will have a positive impact on the community.

“In the past, we have donated funds to other organizations, but now we wanted to do something for the Paly community,” Gavrielov said. “We hope this card will be a good resource in emergency situations and will provide students with vital safety information.”

For the latest ADR club information and events, visit its website.

Editor’s Note: Stern is a reporter and Havlik is a photographer for The Paly Voice.