Preparedness Program Participation Request Form

Thank you for your interest in American Red Cross Community Preparedness Education Programs.

The American Red Cross of Southern California strives to build strong and sustainable relationships with diverse communities to help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. In our efforts to promote preparedness in local communities, we offer the following complimentary programs with 3-4 weeks advance notice.

COVID-19 Updates

Our primary priority is the safety of our community and presenters. Please let us know if there are any COVID-19 policies at your presentation location so we can plan to follow your guidelines. Our presenters, regardless of vaccination status, will wear a mask upon request.

Be Red Cross Ready

Audience: Ideal for adults of all ages! Businesses rotaries, community groups, and households have all found this presentation informative.

Be Red Cross Ready is a personal preparedness presentation that focuses on three steps to becoming prepared: Get a kit. Make a plan. Be informed. This presentation is taught by trained Red Cross volunteers and runs approximately one hour. We can tailor this presentation to your group's needs, and we offer a wide variety of topics to choose from. The list below contains all our modules and their approximate run times, as well as some of our most popular topic combinations.

Be Red Cross Ready Topic Modules

• Preparedness Essentials
• Wildfires
• Earthquakes
• Home Fires
• Floods
• Landslides
• Extreme Heat
• Preparedness for Older Adults
• Winter Storms

Prepare with Pedro

Audience: Students kindergarten-2nd grade

Prepare with Pedro is a 30-45 minute interactive presentation through a storybook, taught by trained Red Cross volunteers. Students learn along with Pedro the Penguin as he joins his friends and neighbors in exploring and preparing for local hazards, including home fires. Students in the Southern California region will learn how to prepare for emergencies and teachers will have the option to share information with parents on how they can receive a free smoke alarm from the American Red Cross. This presentation can be presented in the classroom, as an assembly, or on a virtual platform and each student who participates in the presentation will receive a storybook to take home (while supplies last).

Pillowcase Project

Audience: Students 3rd-5th grade

The Pillowcase Project is a one-hour interactive presentation that teaches students emergency preparedness skills and helpful coping skills for stressful situations. All Pillowcase Project presentations are taught by trained Red Cross volunteers and cover preparedness tools for home fires and a local hazard of your choice. This presentation can be taught in a classroom, as an assembly, or on a virtual platform. Each student who participates in the presentation will receive a pillowcase and workbook to take home (while Supplies last).

Hands-Only CPR

Audience: Anyone!

Hands-Only CPR is a non-certification interactive course that teaches life-saving skills to the community. This presentation is taught by trained and certified Red Cross volunteers and aims to reduce barriers to act in a life-saving emergency. Having more bystanders trained in chest compressions can help save lives by putting more cardiac arrest victims within a few steps of someone who has the skills to help. Access to the internet, a projector, and a sound system is best for the video demonstration, but not required.

Ready Rating

Audience: Workplace Safety Committees, Small Businesses, Schools, Non-Profit Organizations

The Ready Rating presentation is an overview of the readyrating.org website that offers free preparedness planning for small businesses. This 30-minute presentation reviews the resources and templates available to schools, businesses, and faith-based organizations to create or update their Emergency Action Plans.

Request Process

If you are interested in any of the presentations listed above, please fill out the form below. We prefer at least a 3-week notice before the requested event date to finish the scheduling and confirmation process, put together materials, plan logistics, and recruit volunteers. Filling out this form does not guarantee the dates you have listed. Many of our programs are in high demand and our schedules can fill up as early as two months in advance.

We work hard to meet each request from our communities and ask that you keep in mind that our ability to commit to your request is based on the availability of our volunteers, relevance to the Red Cross mission and available resources. Please note: our disaster operations take priority. If our volunteers are called to serve in a disaster response, we may need to cancel or postpone our involvement in a previously scheduled preparedness activity. We will do our best to accommodate your event, and we will let you know if a response will interfere with our participation. Thank you for understanding!

Please click “SUBMIT” to complete your request.

Thank you for your interest in our Preparedness Programs! We will be in touch soon to discuss scheduling and confirmation.