After holding a series of successful fundraisers and donating $1,000 to a non-profit emergency response organization, Paly’s American Disaster Relief Club plans to distribute safety information cards to every student and to educate the school about the importance of the “In Case of Emergency” contact, according to junior Max Cohen, the club’s vice president.
The club contributed $1,000 in the form of Home Depot gift cards to Common Ground Relief, a non-profit organization currently working to rebuild New Orleans, Co-President Nadav Gavrielov said.
Gavrielov cited the unpredictability and the enormous impact of disasters as reasons for donating money and for encouraging people to take safety measures.
“A disaster could strike at any second; just today [Friday, Jan. 8] we had a small earthquake,” he said. “We want people to be ready, and we want to help those who weren’t as lucky by raising money for disaster relief organizations throughout the country.”
The club has raised more than $1,000 dollars through multiple fundraisers since its 2008 founding, according to Gavrielov. He cited selling hot chocolate and cookies on Christmas Tree Lane, hosting haunted houses, and holding bake sales at farmers’ markets as examples of successful enterprises.
Some of the remaining funds will be used to print emergency cards for school-wide distribution, according to Cohen.
“The card lists contacts and information that’ll be helpful to students in case of a disaster or emergency, like an earthquake,” he said. “There’ll be certain information categories for different disasters and lists of locations to go for safety.”
Club officers consulted such local organizations as the fire department and the Palo Alto Neighborhood Disaster Association for advice about what information to include on the cards, Cohen said. He added that because of space limitations, the club wants to focus on what would be most beneficial to students.
Gavrielov said that the remaining barriers to the cards’ distribution should be resolved in a month.
“We have begun to talk to Jungle Digital, a local copying center, about printing the cards,” he said. “In the next couple weeks, we plan to design them and send them to be printed, and we will hopefully pass them out on the quad or through advisers at the beginning of second semester.”
In addition to the emergency cards, the club is piloting another program to teach each student about inserting an “In Case of Emergency” contact into his or her cell phone.
“Under the ICE contact, the student would enter in a number to call in case the student is unable to do so him or herself,” Gavrielov said. “If somebody gets injured and they are unresponsive, their guardian or whomever can be reached very quickly.”
Cohen added that these awareness campaigns will most likely be done through InFocus segments or Living Skills lectures.