American Red Cross Provides Disaster Prevention Program for Young Kids

MUSKINGUM COUNTY, Ohio The American Red Cross is educating and providing young children with different skills for disasters.

Through the ‘Pillowcase Project,’ students from the third to sixth grade are able to learn disaster skills, how to put together disaster kits and more.

Rod Cook, Executive Director with the American Red Cross, said they educate students on all types of situations, but the number one thing they teach in the prevention program is fire safety.

“It is a national program. We’re trying to teach as many kids as possible on, number one, how to prevent a disaster from happening like a fire, but there’s lots of bad things that happen by weather,” Cook stated. “So we also teach them how to be prepared in cases there’s a tornado or a flood or whatever it is and a lot of it depends on them going back and getting their parents to put together, for example, a family disaster plan, a family disaster kit and things like that.”

Cook said this program is important because with these skills children are able to become that additional help within the home and possibly save lives.

The idea is for the students to stuff a pillow case with useful items that will help them in possible disaster and items they find cherishable.

“During Hurricane Katrina when they were evacuating New Orleans a bunch of Tulane students took it upon themselves, ‘we’re not sure what we’re going to take,’ so they just started filling up pillow cases with items and heading to our shelters,” Cook said. “From that, one thing led to another and we developed this program with a full curriculum to teach kids how to prepare for a disaster.”

Cook said during the program the students will get a pillow case that they get to individualize and a list of recommended items needed for a disaster kit. 

He also stated parents should listen and work with their kids when they come home with this information. It’s important to practice different scenarios that may happen around the home.

For more information on the ‘Pillowcase Project’ prevention program, please visit at redcross.org.