On Thursday, March 12, seventy-eight Highroad students and staff attended Emergency Disaster Service (EDS) training at the Salvation Army Church in Chilliwack.  This opportunity was presented to us after the recent Chilliwack flooding when we asked if there was a way that Highroad Academy could help.  The Salvation Army has standards by which their volunteers are trained to respond to emergencies, and they told us that in order to serve in this context, we needed that training.  When the opportunity to be trained was presented to our students, 74 of them signed up!  We told Don Armstrong, the Chilliwack Coordinator for EDS about the response, and he said they would figure out a way to get us all trained.  The Salvation Army has never trained a group of this size at one time, so this was a new challenge.

We met at the church at 9 a.m. and spent the day with Major Gord Armstrong from Vancouver who is the BC Director for EDS.  He started the day by giving us information about the history and the ministries of the Salvation Army.  This was eye opening for our students.  Kailie Priebe in grade 12 said, “I didn’t realize that the Salvation Army had so many aspects to it and how many ways there are to serve”.  Major Gord took us through training in Community Crisis Response, Disaster Food Services and Emergency Disaster Services by means of direct teaching, group scenario discussion, problem solving and videos.  One of the ways he kept our large group engaged for the whole day was by telling us stories about the disasters he had attended, such as 9-11.  He had a great way of making us understand the impact these events had on him as he was able to serve.    At one point, Don’s (our Chilliwack EDS coordinator) pager went off in response to a call for fire fighters, and knowing that EDS workers are often called upon to provide meals and beverages for fire fighters attending a fire, hands went up throughout the room with students anxious to volunteer their new skills.  It was a false alarm however, so those skills are ready for another day.   At lunch time we were served a yummy chili lunch and had the opportunity to tour a disaster service vehicle to see where we will work from.

This training allows all of us to serve at any disaster the Salvation Army is called to, both locally and at points beyond.  Aside from responding to emergencies, we can use our training to work at pre-arranged events; for example, we will be starting to prepare and serve lunches for schools in our district considered ‘inner city’, and in addition to that, it will qualify our students to work as volunteers during the 2010 Olympics at the feeding/warming stations set up for the games.  Overall, it was a great day.  Grade 10 student Stephen Cliff summed it up by saying, “it was cool to learn about the things that we can do to get involved and to help out people who are in need”.  We are very thankful to Major Gord Armstrong and to the Chilliwack Salvation Army for facilitating this training for all of us, and we are thankful to our Highroad Academy staff for allowing so many students to miss classes in order to attend.  We know this day will reap rewards beyond what we can measure.

written by Julie Lade

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