A community group that formed three years ago to help prevent school shootings has begun supplying Chimacum schools with emergency survival kits to weather the aftermath of disasters.

Citizens for Safe Students began in June 2014, when Z. Jack Randall persuaded his fellow parishioners at Peace Lutheran Fellowship in Port Ludlow that they should work to prevent school shootings, such as the one at Seattle Pacific University that same month.

While early meetings yielded relatively low attendance, networking between church members and the surrounding community yielded connections with the Chimacum School District, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners and Sheriff’s Office, and Discovery Behavioral Healthcare, formerly known as Jefferson Mental Health Services (JMHS).

Kalie Enlow, principal of Chimacum Creek Primary School in Port Hadlock, said that the need for short-term survival kits was identified in the course of Chimacum School District staff’s training from the County Sheriff’s Office and JMHS to prepare for intruders and other emergencies.

“We upgraded to make the schools less accessible, and we’ve taken feedback that’s within our budget,” Enlow said.

“One of our group’s goals was to identify threats ahead of time,” said Ron McClung, pastor of Peace Lutheran Fellowship. “There’s a lot of emergency preparation work that’s needed in schools, that’s beyond the time limits of teachers and principals to do. If we have another Nisqually earthquake, it’ll shut down a lot of our infrastructure, and schools will probably need to shelter a lot of students. How will they handle them for three days?”

The answer has been an ongoing campaign, since August 2016, to supply each Chimacum school with enough 72-hour emergency supply kits to meet the needs of their students and staff. Chimacum Creek Primary School has its requisite 221 kits, but Chimacum Elementary School has only 105 of the 235 kits it needs.

BUY ONE, DONATE ONE

Randall explained that community members can help the Chimacum schools, and themselves, stock up on supplies. Every time one emergency kit is purchased for $22, a second emergency kit is given to one of the schools.

“You can buy as many as you want,” Randall said. “You can keep one and have the rest go to the schools. Some folks have bought a bunch of kits and not kept any of them.”

Each kit consists of six packets of drinking water, each containing 4.225 fluid ounces; a 16-ounce packet of food rations, providing a total of 2,400 calories; a 12-hour glow-in-the-dark light stick; a manually powered three-bulb LED flashlight; an air filter mask; a blanket; and a whistle.

“That’s enough food and water for three days, and it has a shelf life of five years,” Randall said.

Jane Lohry Armstrong, another member of Citizens for Safe Students, expects the group to begin supplying Chimacum Middle School and High School by next month.

When she presented a seminar on emergency preparedness to her fellow Port Ludlow residents March 9, she used the opportunity to raise more than $1,100 toward the ongoing effort to stock the schools with kits.

Randall had already raised $1,000 from the East Jefferson Rotary Club, while McClung credited the church with chipping in nearly $1,800.

The Port Ludlow Bay Club, at 120 Spinnaker Place, is set to host an informational event on emergency kits in mid-April. Call 360-437-2208 for details.