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The Beginning

The Mission

The Pandemic

In the Media

Contact Us

Stay Informed

Our Accomplishments

Board of Directors

Partner Organizations

 

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The Beginning

Today’s VashonBePrepared grew out of an informal organization called Vashon Disaster Preparedness Coalition that came together in the early 2000s. A small group of Vashon visionaries formed that first group because they saw the need for a community volunteer corps to prepare the island and take care of our neighbors in a disaster.

 

VashonBePrepared incorporated in 2007 as a federally registered 501(c)(3) non-profit.The work of volunteers is motivated by two major emergency response challenges of our small semi-rural island community: In a major regional disaster, help will likely be a long time coming from the mainland, because Vashon has no bridge, only ferries. Relief resources will go to where they can do the most good for the most people: the major population centers.

 

Video introduction to VashonBePrepared

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The Mission

This coalition of organizations and community leaders pursues a broad scope of work. Groups commit to:

  • Motivate and educate individual citizens, households, businesses and neighborhoods to be as self-reliant as possible during a disaster through advance planning and preparation
  • Build community partnerships with Island institutions, agencies, businesses, and volunteer groups to help create a structure capable of responding to a disaster
  • Develop Island-wide disaster plans and procedures in collaboration with Vashon Island Fire and Rescue (VIFR)
  • Recruit, organize, and train volunteer staff for an Island Emergency Operations Center (the EOC Team) under the command of VIFR
  • Raise and manage funds and property in support of all these organizational purposes

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The Pandemic

The recent COVID pandemic showed that VashonBePrepared’s approach is working. Registered volunteers were activated by VIFR’s fire chief in March of 2020, as schools and businesses began closing. Within a few months, dozens of COVID cases were reported, including hospitalizations. Ultimately, an economic crisis paralleled the public health disaster, with 40% of Vashon businesses going dark or profitless. Unemployment rose to 22%.

  • People were told to stay home to avoid exposure to COVID but the only testing was located a ferry ride away. VashonBePrepared stood up a high-volume drive-in testing program.
  • With testing, contact tracing could be conducted and became a major tool in helping to flatten the peak rates of infection during successive waves of the COVID pandemic.
  • When vaccines arrived, the mass testing techniques were adapted to create vaccination clinics, conducted in an innovative partnership with our island’s only pharmacy.
  • A long and widespread public health education effort helped spread understanding of the value of testing, vaccination, masking, and other measures.
  • Vaccination compliance was very high here, with people aged 65 and over achieving 95%+ vaccination rates. A peer-reviewed scientific study showed that Vashon’s COVID infection rate reached only 30% of the level seen in mainland King County.
  • Many islanders supported the testing and vaccination efforts by donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to VashonBePrepared’s COVID Relief Fund. Those donations were nearly doubled by federal and King County cost reimbursements, so that the spending power of the relief fund reached about $750,000.

 

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In The Media