Disaster Child Care adds new site and new training opportunities.

Norfolk, Va., has been added to the sites where Disaster Child Care volunteers are caring for children evacuated from the hurricanes. The program also has announced new training opportunities.

Volunteer child-care teams have been working in Lafayette and Shreveport, La.; Kingwood, W.Va.; Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach, Fla.; Denver, Colo.; and Los Angeles and San Bernardino, Calif. Disaster Child Care serves at the request of FEMA and the Red Cross.

The child care team that had begun work at the Cajun Dome in Lafayette before Hurricane Rita hit the Gulf Coast, was evacuated to Shreveport along with the evacuees they were serving. The team then set up child care at the Expo Center in Shreveport. They and the evacuee group were on their way back to Lafayette today, to continue offering child care at the Cajun Dome.

Disaster Child Care has received so many requests to do additional trainings, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, that the program has appointed volunteer coordinator Wilma Ammermann to handle all the requests. Several additional trainings have been scheduled to enlist new volunteers for a response that spans more states than Disaster Child Care has ever served at any one time.

Two additional Level I training workshops have been confirmed: at La Verne (Calif.) Church of the Brethren on Oct. 1-2; and in Norfolk, Neb., on Oct. 22-23. (The training scheduled for Reno, Nev., Oct. 7-8 has been canceled.) A registration fee of $45 is being waived because of the emergency status of these trainings. However, the program will be happy to receive any donations toward training costs. See www.disasterchildcare.org for more information about trainings and registration.

Source: 9/28/2005 Newsline
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