Empire State Division EDS Holds Full Scale Mass Care Exercise

Syracuse, NY – The Salvation Army Empire State Division Emergency Disaster Services conducted a Full-Scale Exercise on Saturday May 11, 2019 at Long Point Camp to test the ability to respond to a Family Reunification Center and provide Mass Feeding and Emotional and Spiritual Care to over 300 simulated High School students.  For the exercise, two Disaster Response Units were brought in from Rochester, NY and Canandaigua, NY while Feeding and ESC volunteers from Sidney, NY and Syracuse, NY responded directly to the scene to provide Mass Care to teens and adults who simulated being evacuated from a local High School to the Division’s Camp Facility after an incident.

“For this exercise, we wanted to provide a realistic scenario while also providing a level of urgency for our volunteers to work under in real time.  To provide this, resources were brought in from across the Division, requiring our EDS Volunteers to plan and produce over 350 meals within two hours while using unfamiliar facilities and Canteens.  Our volunteers then served the meals in the field and simulated providing Emotional and Spiritual Care.”  said Divisional EDS Director Mike Schwartz

Schwartz further stated: “We would like to thank all of our volunteers as well as our Divisional Youth Department, Long Point Camp Staff, the Syracuse ARC and attendees of the Empire Youth Councils Weekend for participating and allowing our teams to learn and practice their response skills.”

For more information on The Salvation Army’s Emergency Disaster Services, please contact Michael Schwartz at (315) 434-1367 or michael.schwartz@use.salvationarmy.org