The Patriot Corner

Are you prepared? What would happen if you lost your job? What would you do if you were faced with a disaster such as what happened recently in Japan? What would happen if suddenly you had no way to obtain electricity, water or food? What if this disaster lasted for months? Would you expect the government to provide for you or will you be ready to take care of yourself? Whether the disaster is natural such as an earthquake or man-made such as a terrorist attack, there are 2 questions you need to answer.  What would you do? Are you prepared?

Recently, the Parma Patriots have asked ourselves these types of questions and many of us have decided that we need to be ready to help ourselves and our neighbors as much as possible. For many of us, this was just a continuation of what we have been doing for many years but for some of us this is a new way of thinking. Those of us with some experience in self reliance are sharing our knowledge with others and we are also enlisting the aid of experts in other fields to share with us as well. Obviously, we can’t all be experts in everything but a little knowledge can go a long way in making you feel more confident in your ability to survive a disaster.

Our first goal was to share our knowledge of food preservation with each other. To that end, we have held special classes and shared knowledge regarding canning of foods such as vegetables, fruits and various meat as well as methods of dehydrating food. We have also discussed ways to properly store food, water and other supplies and also what amounts of each are appropriate. We have also discussed economical ways of purchasing the items needed for both short and long term storage.

Later this year, we will be talking about other emergency preparedness issues as well. We intend to have experts share with us methods of gardening, first aid, self defense and many other topics. Details regarding these opportunities will be posted on our website @ www.meetup.com/Parma-Patriots. If you are having difficulty finding us, you can also simply Google search for Parma Patriots. We welcome you to join us as we all learn new ways to be prepared.