Earthquake Kits for Kids

Our project began as a service project idea of a few of the students at Open High School of Utah (OHSU). We wanted to provide emergency supplies to the economically disadvantaged Whittier Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah. We began to make our project a reality as we determined what supplies were necessary and planned various methods for obtaining them. Next, we enlisted the help of students and faculty at OHSU to help us gather supplies. A DoSomething seed grant was applied for. As the time for presentation of the kits approached, many of the students at OHSU volunteered to prepare to teach the various topics related to earthquakes at our presentation assembly. A few days before the assembly, a group of students from OHSU met to put the 35 classroom kits together. On May 25, 2010, OHSU students met the excited recipients at Whittier Elementary. It was an awesome experience to teach and then distribute the completed kits to each classroom. Later, we were thrilled to learn that our project was awarded the DoSomething seed grant money. This grant money was used to reimburse OHSU for the expenditures they made in order to complete the kits after generous donations had been collected from the community. Because there was a remainder of the grant money, Whittier Elementary was contacted to further assess their preparedness needs. At their request, the grant money was used to purchase 27 additional flashlights with extra batteries for the school. Because of our Earthquake Kits for Kids project, the staff and the students at Whittier Elementary School are better prepared to survive and take care of basic needs in the event of an emergency.