September is National Preparedness Month!

After yesterday's shooting at an elementary school in South Carolina to the floods in Baton Rouge and West Virginia and tornadoes that will likely hit this fall, it is more and more imperative that we equip our children with the information and supplies needed in case they are in school or daycare if a disaster hits while in their care. Children are the most vulnerable in emergency situations. That’s why Save the Children encourages everyone to act to better protect kids BEFORE disaster strikes.

I’d love your support in getting everyone to complete PREP STEP #1 in our #GetReadyGetSafe #PrepStep! Visit Save the Children to create ICE cards for your children. Make an ICE contact card for each child, in case of Emergency (ICE), you’ll be able to reunite quickly with your children.

Prep Step #1 = Make ICE contact cards for each child at: www.SavetheChildren.org/ICE

Did you know statistically every day, 69 million U.S. children are separated from their families while they are at school or child care. After Hurricane Katrina there were more than 5,000 reports of missing children. It took 7 months to reunite the last child with her family. Here is a video of one such family. Your child’s ICE card should include 3 emergency contacts -- including an out-of- town contact, because during emergencies, local communications are often down.

Make your ICE contact cards at www.SavetheChildren.org/ICE. It’s free and easy! Fill out one form for your whole family online (Save the Children will not store your child’s info anywhere). Print out the cards (you’ll get two copies for each child), cut and fold. Put one copy in a luggage tag to keep inside your child’s bag and keep the other copy in your wallet.

Do the Prep Step! Make emergency prep fun for the whole family. Save the Children also created a fun song and dance called “The Prep Step” to help kids learn the 3 important prep steps every family should take. Check it out!