Just a few months ago our family in the Midwest was pummeled by terrible storms and flooding. I knew we had to help them to cope with the dangerous weather events in their neighborhoods. So I put together a “Family Prepper Package“ of information. Here was my process:
Step #1 Create a Written PLan
We made a copy of the plan a part of the presentation binder contents for each household in our extended family. Our plan evolved loosely into a seven part program based on current interests, current economics, infrastructure lack of maintenance, and the real probability of a financial collapse in the fairly near future. Our immediate local Utah family has been involved in preparedness for nearly 30 years, beginning with accepting a volunteer church assignment as our local congregation’s preparedness / self reliance specialists. Please note that our personal viewpoint of preparedness is that it is actually a select group of proven principles — namely frugality and forward thinking / awareness integrated into our daily lives.
A key proviso: If your survival plan is complicated, if your survival plan is expensive, if your survival plan is too short term, if your survival plan is out-dated, or if your survival plan is not based on ample food and water, then It Will Not Work Well.
Our church does promote preparedness as a suggested practical concept, and no, it is never a doctrinal premise or membership requirement. Principles are never denominational, and no group can ever have sole ownership of a principle. That maxim does well in our family, since there are members of four different religious denominations plus our one agnostic son who has terrific values and personal integrity and standards.
Okay, we are past the useless churchy objectionable bias stuff. Now let’s go for the proven procedures that can be learned from folks you may not agree with on any topics, ever. Claim Whatever Works For You!
Simplistic Food Supply Planning Rule #1:
Never store food items that you have not eaten in the past six weeks. Think about it.
Simplistic Water Supply Planning Rule #2:
When the lights go off, fill your bathtub with cold water while you still have water pressure. Think about it.
These two simplistic common sense concepts of survival were proposed, taught, and re-taught to our midwest family repeatedly so as to enable them to finally begin to both think and feel that planning ahead for disaster response decisions, and making a written plan, would save lives and conquer fear. We made these two rules the foundational basis of the Family Prepper Package.
You can easily go to YouTube and search for: “WENDY DEWITT – FOOD – and then download her very special and personal food storage methods program. We put it in the video group. It runs a little more than an hour and she starts with a statement that: “this is a church sponsored presentation that is not approved by the church, it just works so very well”.
We live in SW Utah and our full / extended family groups are located many hundreds of miles away in Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and up in Idaho. They range in age from 59 down to an infant. And only one adult grandson (in Kansas) was interested in serious preparedness before we made a committed decision to update all of them with binders filled with selected print-outs and two inexpensive USB flash drives filled with downloaded videos.
Continue reading“Teaching Preparedness To Family, by Old Bobbert – Part 1”