Ronald Reagan-Pacific Palisades Post 283 Commander Jim Cragg spreads the word about the his new emergency services card he developed 🚨 🚓 🏥 — in the hopes it would inspire others to do the same in their communities — during the American Legion Department of California’s annual convention on Saturday, June 25. (Photo: Jared Morgan/Editor)
During times of natural disaster and periods of high crime, our neighbors often to look to their veteran neighbors for guidance – after all, we were trained to engage highly dynamic and often dangerous environments. Ronald Reagan Palisades Post 283 has been building its reputation as a community leader in public safety. We began by hosting Red Cross First Aid and Stop the Bleed Classes, hosting LAPD and LASD community discussions, and we’ve set up a first rate HAM radio program.
Our capstone project that we’ve been working on is a Post Card “Guide for Who to Call for Emergencies in Pacific Palisades.” The diagram educates families on who to call and when – 911 emergencies, LAPD front desk reporting, LA County Mental Health PET teams and our local homeless task force, for non-violent psych events, and animal control for dangerous and injured animals.
We just sent out 10,000 post cards to every home in Pacific Palisades and it cost under $3000. But while we hope every family tapes the post card to their refrigerator, we also encourage everyone to take a picture with their cell phone and save it and email it to all of their friends and family. They can also download a pdf file from our Post 283 website, and this is something every American Legion Post can do practically for free.
Our goal: Citizens need to know who to call in an emergency and calling the wrong agency can result in lost precious time and clogging EMS dispatch. We saw the community disconnect from our police during last summer’s riots and one highly publicized issue was police response to dangerous mental health calls. As Legionnaires, we often have a connection and understanding of law enforcement and EMS, so I decided to utilize this trusted position in the community to educate our citizens in their role in activating EMS and communicating with the appropriate authority.
For instance, in addition to listing 911, this card lists both county and police mental health programs so families dealing with a relative in crisis are educated on their options. We also listed our local homeless task force and animal control so people have those options to call respectively rather than wasting calls to 911. My Post printed it and mailed it but I worked with our local community safety group and I spoke with the agencies directly.
My hope is that this will end up on refrigerators and saved on cell phones across my city, and we would love to see similar Emergency Service Guides mailed out to communities across the Country by our fellow American Legion Posts. Our hope is that this will inspire people to understand that they are an important part of the EMS process and walking away from an incident in ignorance is not OK. If this brings the community closer to our police, fire crews, social workers, paramedics and animal control, then I will have a accomplished something more important.
Ronald Reagan Palisades Post 283 is happy to share this card format in Microsoft Publisher so your post members can open the file and replace our local contacts with your local Emergency Services contacts. Email it to your members, post it to your Facebook and Post website, and if you have the funds send out a mailer. The more we can do to educate our neighbors, and bring our community closer to our first responders will be good for the community, and good for the reputation of the American Legion.
Download The Community Emergency Safety Guide and feel free to modify it to your community.
Jim Cragg is commander of Ronald Reagan-Pacific Palisades Post 283.
Author: caLegion Contributor
The above article may contain opinions which are the author's own and may not necessarily reflect an official stance taken by The American Legion Department of California. We do our best to vet any information posted to the website. Please email webteam@calegion.org with any changes and/or corrections to anything published here.
