Harold Johnson, Blue Cap

RRBA Disaster Relief Team Leader

TO: Disaster Relief Volunteers

FROM:  Harold Johnson, Unit Director

SUBJECT:  Update Newsletter # 56

DATE:  March 13, 2013

The purpose of this memo is to provide you with an update on what is going on with Red River Baptist Association Disaster Relief.

This is the time to put our training date for 2013 on your calendar if you haven’t already done so. It will be April 20^th at First Baptist Church Hope beginning at 8:30 am. Anyone with an expired ID badge and any with expiration date of April 2014 (the next possible opportunity) or earlier, should attend. We need our experienced personnel to attend and assist with the training of new personnel.  We also are inviting our newly trained personnel from the New York experience to attend and receive hands on training and update training specific to our unit and equipment.

 Also if you would like transportation from Arkadelphia to Hope for the training we will be taking our bus and trucks. We will need to leave the Association office at 7:30 am, so be there before then and let me know if you will be riding with us.

After the training our next significant event will be Mission of Mercy, a free dental clinic offered by personnel from the Arkansas Dental Association. The event will be held on Friday and Saturday May 31^st and June 1st at the Wells Physical Education Center on the campus of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. Our role will be to prepare and serve breakfast and lunch to the probably 2,000 patients waiting in line, many of whom will have been waiting in line since sometime Thursday. We will move our equipment into place on Thursday the 30^th in the morning. We will gather at our building very early on Friday and Saturday and be bussed to the campus. There will be so many patients and dental personnel that Arkadelphia will be overwhelmed. We need all of our personnel from the Arkadelphia area and those who can conveniently come from other areas to assist in this effort. Don’t count on getting a motel room or eating in a restaurant in the Arkadelphia area. We can use our disaster relief building for sleeping any who need a place. (heat, air conditioning, showers, rest rooms, kitchen, food, all provided at no charge) Just bring a bed roll and let me know if you will need our facilities.

I hope this helps you to stay informed.  Please call me at 870-246-5151 or e-mail me at johnsonhj@suddenlink.net if you have questions or comments.

CC:   Bill Cantrell     Robby Tingle     Mikki Hastings      Jaison Scott