ARROYO
SECO NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL
Letter about:
Appreciation for CERT Drill Help / Support
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July 15, 2009 Fire Chief Douglas Barry Los Angeles Fire Department Dear Chief Barry, I felt it was important to take the time to write and express, on behalf of the entire Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council, our gratitude towards the Los Angeles Fire Department on your continuing efforts to support the city's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) preparedness efforts. To start, since I became a CERT Level 1 responder in 2007 my skills have improved dramatically thanks to the several Silver Lake CERT drills sponsored by Capt Gerlich and the SL Neighborhood Council (SLNC) on Saturday mornings – complete with moulaged victims and LAFD EMT experts to assist CERT responders! More recently, thanks to Capt Gerlich's expert training skills, our first-ever mega-popular Moulage training class on July 13th that she led was a HUGE success -- even after I failed to properly review our flyer before sending it out. It had the wrong address and 35 students showed up 3 blocks down the street! :-( Luckily after a few heartaches all students walked 3 blocks to the SLNC Meeting room for a SUPER informational and interesting class. I was blown away at how knowledgeable Stacy was with moulage and how professional her class was conducted -- she had the whole room laughing almost the entire time with funny anecdotes! Everyone loved it...pictures are included with this letter for your reference. Due to resounding feedback from this class, and the obvious fact that moulage was a "BIG" draw (we had to turn away over 10 people, including makeup artists since the class was full), we are proposing a much larger "CERT Halloween Moulage Party" on Saturday, Oct 31 st , hopefully at the LAFD training station off Stadium Way (near Dodger stadium) if the facility is available. This will the full support and help of Capt. Gerlich (who inspired us to do this)! At this fun event , CERT members will be able to come and learn how to moulage AND get made up for your Halloween party at the same time! Capt Gerlich indicated that she will try and get the Mayor to help sponsor this important event! Due to the timeliness and dual nature, we're hoping to get the media to cover it since its an unusual human interest story, and we plan on sending a press release to every TV station in Los Angeles to promote it. Also, I am going to approach the Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council for $1000 to fund this Halloween Party (ie. buy moulage supplies, cake, food, soda, etc). The Silver Lake NC will also request $1000 from the SLNC. We plan on bringing our NC's PA system and playing scary background Halloween music to add to the ambiance! If we do this right it could be a big promotion to draw in more interest for CERT. 10 people signed up to help organize this event, so there's a lot of support. Our goal is to make this cool Halloween idea a clever way too raise awareness about CERT while having FUN at the same time :-) Also, since we've made friends with the owners of Joe Blasco Makeup School in Los Felix, I am going to approach them to come and help out. This is the same school helping at our drill that also moulaged 100 victims of a simulated plane crash in Orlando two years ago. More immediate, would you please consider attending our next local grass-root CERT drill in Hermon on Sat, 7/25 at 8:00am ( http://www.hermonLA.org/CERT_Drill.html ), inspired in large part by Capt Gerlich's previous drills in Silver Lake? In summary, you can obviously see by our events planned the enthusiasm that Capt Stacy Gerlich has instilled in our B2 and B7 communities for the CERT program. Please give her a big thanks for us and let her know how invaluable her help has been to the citizens of our communities. Sincerely, Mark Legassie Public Safety Cmte, Chair 323-823-3046 www.asnc.us cc: S.Gerlich, Capt-LAFD |