After working with the Red Cross, we now have a heightened awareness of the importance of both school and family emergency preparedness plans. All members of a community need to work together to develop a plan that everyone is comfortable with. It’s important to think things through and plan — not just react to emergencies.

The Red Cross Ready Rating program was a key component of our full campus review concerning safety and emergency preparedness. The self-assessment allowed our team to build and expand our common language around a shared set of goals, while providing action items for areas in need of improvement. The ongoing relationship with the American Red Cross has also been a reflection to our community of what we value. There is no greater authority when it comes to safety and business continuity, and it is an honor to have this partnership.

I must wholeheartedly commend the Ready Rating program for its outstanding approach to preparing for disaster. Ready Rating explicitly details the importance of preparedness, emphasizing that 40 percent of businesses never recover. That’s a statistic one simply cannot ignore! Rather than generalizing, the program clearly defines whom one should contact and what steps should be taken to prepare for the unthinkable. And, the annual rating examination that members take helps us to easily track our progress as we strive to get better. I cannot too highly commend the program. I am so glad we chose to participate!

The Ready Rating program has helped our organization realize what goes into planning for emergencies and allowed us to begin planning to help our community and reach out to other communities in their time of need.

Ready Rating is a must have program for an organization of any size. Ready Rating is a powerful assessment and planning resource. Valuable assessment tools for seasoned risk managers, or those beginning a program are difficult to find in one place, but Ready Rating has it.

Our school took part in the American Red Cross Ready Rating program this year. The Ready Rating Team was helpful and supportive in moving our school forward in being prepared for a disaster. After we completed the assessment the Red Cross conducted a full day of training at our site. Our entire school community (students, staff, and parents) learned a great deal by participating in the training.
It was a valuable and worthwhile experience.

The Ready Rating Program is a wonderful tool for helping businesses get their safety programs moving. Taking the 123 Assessment really helps you see where you need work and where you are doing well. Our entire safety committee attended the Ready Rating Training with Troy Staples and we took away solid information and tangible tools to help us with our safety planning. In addition, it inspired many of us to also take steps to be more prepared in our personal lives. This is a great resource, we are so happy to be a member.

I found the Ready Rating program helpful in organizing our thoughts in the initial setup of our churches’ safety and security program. It has been seven months since we did the initial review. Ideally I would like to go through the scorecard sometime this summer and use it as a tool to measure our progress, as well as an aid to prioritize areas where we can improve. Having our initial scorecard as a baseline will be invaluable. Thanks for your assistance in making our church a safer place.

I find this program helpful in many ways… but one of the ways is reminding me how much we have done to be ready for emergencies. With so much focus on H1N1, I was worried that my other areas would not be addressed. However, when I did the assessment, I realized that we really are in pretty good shape, and I have a direction for the areas that need work. Thanks for the Ready Rating program.

The Ready Rating Program has been extremely beneficial to Stout Street Foundation. We have been updating our Emergency Response Plans annually, which has been effective. All of the information that was presented by the Red Cross helped up us really prioritize and focus our efforts on being ready for situations that are most likely to occur in our specific location with our specific demographic, and plan accordingly. Our Red Cross representative listened to all aspects of what we do at our company, so everything from employee preparedness in their personal lives to first aid trainings that are available to us were discussed, and everything in between. This process of getting everyone on board is time consuming but not overly costly. I would highly recommend this program to any company that is able to participate. Too often we focus on all of the day-to-day activity and just hope for the best; however, by taking the time now to prepare we are making a long-term investment in the success of our company.

Membership in the Red Cross Ready Rating program has given IMC effective building-blocks for crafting a comprehensive emergency response plan. The 123-Point Assessment provided valuable insights on which disasters we’re most vulnerable to and outlined clear steps and milestones to ensure the safest and most efficient response. We found the program scaled precisely to our planning needs, no matter what types of preparedness we previously had in place. This type of exercise should be a top priority for all organizations in order to safeguard employees and mitigate risks to business operations.

From an HR perspective, the Ready Rating program has fostered a heightened sense of security at IMC. From a flood in the server room, to violence in the workplace, our employees take comfort knowing that we have contingencies and policies in place to respond to emergencies and disaster events. Individuals have become engaged in the various volunteer roles that the program appoints. Similarly, there are valuable steps provided to educate employees on emergency preparedness outside the work environment, which underscored IMC’s strong commitment to work-life balance and community involvement.

When we first were contacted about the Ready Rating program, I was skeptical. After meeting with our Red Cross representative, I was convinced that this would lead us to a safer and better prepared school. I have not been disappointed, the help has been great!

If an earthquake hits the St. Louis area, do you know the emergency plan at your child’s school? Schools must be prepared to respond to a variety of situations, from dangerous weather to potential outside threats to pandemic planning. As a school administrator, it’s my job to make sure your kids are safe during the seven hours a day they spend with us. That’s why the Mehlville School District was among the first to join the American Red Cross Ready Rating program. This program rates our schools on a 65-point scale of preparedness Thanks to this program, we now know exactly where we stand and what we need to do to improve our readiness. And the Red Cross is there to help us every step of the way.

I have been very impressed with how easy the American Red Cross has made the Ready Rating program for us to utilize. Situations that I may never have thought of are presented and this helps me prepare my school. There is an added benefit of the stipend. Overall, this is a totally worthwhile program that every school should be a part of.

When Express Scripts looked at the Red Cross Ready Rating program, we saw a reputable brand name. The Red Cross is recognized worldwide for emergency preparedness. We have found that Ready Rating is a great framework for those that already have a solid business continuity program in place. The Red Cross offers the expertise and resources to evaluate your plan looking through a different lense.

United Way is already incorporating many of the tools and tips from the Red Cross’ Ready Rating program. It’s information that is easy to share with all staff and will help us increase our knowledge of how to be prepared in times if crisis or disaster no matter where we are. I would like to thank everyone at the Red Cross for creating this important program.

In school emergency preparedness there are not many barometers to measure and evaluate the practices that we have implemented. The Red Cross Ready Rating program provides our district tools to insure that we are covering our bases when it comes to emergency preparedness. In addition, the Red Cross Ready Rating program also provides information on how to meet those emergency preparedness needs. The partnership between the Red Cross and the school district will not only benefit the staff and students, but the entire community as whole if and when a community-wide disaster hits. In closing, we look forward to working with Red Cross Ready Rating program.