Sunday, March 25, 2012

The "Emergency Fair"

One community's Emergency Fair. This is the fire department stall.
       
This stall shows their line of available emergency freeze dried food.
 
      When we originally moved to this region, there was not a lot to do socially unless you were very wealthy.  We enjoyed the role of being the "poster family for the middle class" here, and couldn't have done many of the social events.   Polo and fox hunting,  are too expensive and neither interest me.  Fundraisers for politicians aren't my cup of tea either, although I did take my youngest son to a couple of them, for educational purposes. As time went on, I did find charitable works which not only interested me, but helped me find purpose beyond my own family, and my own likes and dislikes.



               I suppose I am happy to announce that even in our isolated rural berg, things have changed.  The new social events here are things like an "Emergency Fair" and also a "Seed Swap".    The "Emergency Fair" is a gathering in which local groups provide information about broad aspects of preparedness to families.  Some of the attendees who bought tables there in flea market fashion, are local fire departments,  local governments and health departments armed with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, rounded out by home inspection contractors, people who sell patrol dogs, and people whose companies help you grow what you can to eat, from whatever acreage you have.  Almost every local company and organization found a way in which they could help local families, both wealthy, poor, and middle class, better prepare for a wide range of emergencies, and for general health promotion of education.   In a separate room, there was citizen CPR certification, including AED training.  The local rescue squads and CERT were also recruiting. There were door prizes, and literature for making your own 72 hour bags, and "sheltering in place" versus evacuation, etc. Some of the churches which teach safe canning were there, to let people know when their classes are.  The local foodbank was there also, to let people know they need more donations, and also to let people know,  where they are, and that they are willing to help.  If your region has not yet considered doing one of these, perhaps you and friends could organize one in tandem with your county.  This was also a lot of fun.
             A "Seed Swap" is a similar undertaking.    People set up flea market style tables for a small fee, and then individuals and families come to trade their seeds for others.   Roots and plant samples are ok also if this is the way a plant is propagated.  This endeavor takes something people do anyway, trade their extra daylillies they have, split for small red tip bushes, etc. and heirloom tomato seeds for other heirloom variety seeds which can be grown as foods.  The local extension agent can also come to answer questions on best practices.
            The recession has done a few good things for families.  One of them is to foster education, a sense of community,  and some opportunities in some of the activities which have evolved since 2008.




This is one community's procedure for "Seed Swap".  Our small region was much less formal.
    

4 comments:

kymber said...

i love the idea of swapping seeds and i think that i am going to start a seed swapping section on our blog. i love what your community is doing in regards to the preparedness fair - might have to try starting one of those here in our community!

your friend,
kymber

JaneofVirginia said...

One of the challenges we would face with a seed swap which is blog based, is that laws prohibit our sending seeds and plants from the US to Canada and back again. This is to avoid sending plant diseases along with it. It is always hard for me when I am in Canada, because I find hanging plants and bushes I want to bring to Virginia, and I can't. Perhaps their could be Canadian seed swap division, and US seed swap division to help avoid this. I would be happy to send you anything I can that isn't seed related though. I wish there were such a thing as a Cadbury button tree. We could plant some Cadbury buttons in Autumn and in Spring a tree, right next to the hearty kiwi, could emerge, with lots of buttons on it. My family always joked that many ideas were a "pigment" of my highly colored imagination !

kymber said...

Jane - Beth sent seeds from Illinois to me - they got here fine - and i just sent some to her. both of us checked into the various state/federal/provincial laws and as long as you are not sending commercial amounts - you can mail seeds. who knew? i think that armed with this knowledge we all could set up some major seed swapping! i know that i am going to try!

your friend,
kymber

JaneofVirginia said...

That is excellent news ! Perhaps I had issues because Virginia is prohibited to send things to Nova Scotia. (We have kudzu here from Japan and it's quite the thug) Maybe some of the Southern US states have restrictions. I will check into this also.
Near our home in Canada there are tons of round granite rocks that people often use for landscaping and retaining walls. I don't need too many of them, but it would be fantastic to bring some of the big ones home, though completely impractical. When I came back from there will round smooth stones from the beach, I got a hard time at the airport, on the Canadian side. I promise, they are not weapons ! LOL