HandsOn Suburban Chicago supports annual Prairie State Challenge

HandsOn Suburban Chicago's Disaster Services Specialist Linda Trilling supported the 2014 Prairie State Community Emergency Response Team Saturday, Oct. 18.

The event was organized by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and hosted this year by the DuPage County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

The training experience included 11 CERT teams from different areas within the state of Illinois. They competed against each other in such areas as interior searches, exterior searches, team building, triage/treatment, fire/utilities and transport.

Scenarios were set up throughout the Homeland Education Center: the mock courtroom, the street scene, the outdoor training tower, several classrooms and the smoke room.

HandsOn Suburban Chicago led the recruitment, registration, placement and management of volunteers during the six-month planning period and on the day of the event.

More than 300 volunteers supported this effort and came from a variety of locations. Twenty-three volunteers were actually nursing students from the College of DuPage and collectively contributed 2630 total volunteer hours.

For information on the event, visit www.state.il.us/iema/citizencorps/default.asp.

For more than 40 years, HandsOn Suburban Chicago has been inspiring, equipping and mobilizing people to volunteer and take action that builds vibrant and prosperous communities. HOSC recruits and refers 10,000 volunteers annually to more than 200-plus member agency nonprofits and provides other support to local charitable organizations such as consultations and trainings.

A nonprofit 501(c)(3) agency and part of the national HandsOn Network, HOSC service area includes 44 communities in the North and Northwest suburbs and a population of more than 1.4 million residents.

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