My name is Sara Deen Kimball and I started volunteering in disaster response with the Louisiana State Animal Response Team (LSART) in 2010 from oil spills, floods, and hurricanes. Louisiana has come a long way since Katrina where emergency responders were not required to allow people to take their pets that resulted in people refusing to leave without their pet and some abandoning their pets. It was doing disaster response during a flood that I thought- what if this family knew how to include their pet in their emergency plan and had taken this dog with them? What if they also knew how to prepare their dog for travel to help prevent stress?
As I thought about this, I know most people do not intentionally plan to leave or abandon their pets, but without planning, they just didn't know what to do. I recalled my elementary days when the firefighter came to visit my class and talked about stop-drop-roll, and having a fire plan. As a kid, I went home and asked my parents what our fire plan was. I decided to use that same model to slowly shift a culture.
I've created a series of kids activity books and games to teach pet health, training, and travel in a fun, gentle way so as not to scare children. All of these materials are free to download for anyone to use at Louisiana State Animal Response Team LSART under the Kids Corner.
I am currently fine tuning some teaching syllabuses I have used through the year to guide anyone who wants to hosts a program and am happy to help anyone.
I also wrote a book called Rowen and the Animal Shelter that teaches kids what to do when they see a stray dog, who animal control is, what animal shelters do, and how they can help their local shelter. The back of the book contains resources ranging from discussion questions, games, and list of how they can help their shelter.
I would love to hear what others are doing to educate the public and share ideas.
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| Louisiana State Animal Response Team LSART |
| Louisiana State Animal Rescue Team is an organization of agencies and volunteers involved in animals in disasters preparedness and response. |
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#EducationandTraining------------------------------
Sara Kimball
Volunteer Community Education
Louisiana State Animal Response Team
LA
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