We know that planning for the unknown can be a challenge. That’s why we’re excited to share one of our newest resources, our Emergency Preparedness Toolkit.

Geared towards individuals and organizations that focus on helping people and pets, such as animal shelters, rescues, boarding facilities, and veterinary clinics, the toolkit has everything you need to create a comprehensive emergency plan.

The effects of a changing climate are impacting larger parts of the country more often. The toolkit’s information, plan templates, assessments, task descriptions, and checklists will help you stay safe no matter what heads your way.

Resources:

• Best Friends Emergency Preparedness Toolkit: https://network.bestfriends.org/education/operations/additional-education/emergency-preparedness-toolkit
• Register now for the Best Friends national conference: https://bestfriends.org/conference. Use the discount code "PODCAST" to save $10 (Best Friends network partners receive a greater discount using the code delivered via email. Discount codes can not be stacked)

This is the Best Friends podcast dedicated to sharing the

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welfare leaders from across the movement who will share the

innovative and collaborative work that are creating life-saving successes in

communities of all sizes.

Hello and welcome. Today is April the sixth of 2023.

My name is Jon Dunn and it is time for

a fresh episode of the Best Friends podcast. And it's

hard to believe it's April already, but it is, and

it's the first week of April, which means registration for

the 2023 Best Friends National Conference is now open. I

will be heading to the conference again this year and

I hope to be able to meet all of you.

It's in Houston, Texas, August 10th through the 12th. Don't

worry, we'll be inside for most of it. Best Friends

network partners, check your email because we sent one out

this week that has a discount code for you to

use. If you are a partner, but you didn't get

that email with the code, email me podcast@bestfriends.org.

We will make sure you get what you need. If

you're not a partner, but you wanna come to the

conference, of course you can come. Please come to the

conference and in fact, you have your very own discount

because you are a listener of the Best Friends podcast.

The link to register is in the show notes. You

can also just go to best friends.org/conference. If you're not

a network partner, use the code podcast that'll give you

a few bucks off your registration. Again, during the registration

process, there is a moment you can enter a discount

code. It is the word 'podcast'. I hope to see

all of you there. And if you're into it, maybe

we could do like a podcast meetup or something, I

don't know, open to ideas. Feel free to send us

an email podcast@best friends.org. That is our email address.

That along with all of the rest of the information

I just mentioned will be in the show notes. Now

for this week's episode, I'm very excited to be able

to share this conversation I had with Sharon Hawa about

a brand spanking new toolkit available for free to everybody

right now. Sharon, not your first time on the podcast,

so let me say welcome back. But for those who

didn't catch your previous appearance, please tell them who you

are and what you do at Best Friends.

Sure. So my name's Sharon Hawa, and I am the

Senior Manager of Emergency Services at Best Friends. Basically what

that means is that I help both the internal organization

prepare for disasters as well as put out resources and

information for the animal services industry to help them prepare

for disasters, which is one of the reasons why we're

here today. Talk about the emergency preparedness toolkit. So I'm

really excited that we're launching this.

Well, I'm also excited about it because we still need

help. I think. You can't talk disasters in animal welfare

without talking about Hurricane Katrina and the massive impact that

one event had on Best Friends. I mean, it totally

changed, I think, the trajectory of the future of this

organization. But of course, it also impacted all of animal

welfare, the way we relate to disasters, the way we

think about them, the way we relate to people and

pets, and you know, that pets are now considered to

be part of the family in a way that the

government didn't believe during that time. So I do feel

like we are better on the whole at handling emergencies

today.

Yeah, I mean, we almost have no choice, right, because

they just keep happening. So it's kind of like get

with the program. But Katrina was definitely sort of the

impetus for the pet piece to kind of get central

focus because we saw a lot of people not wanting

to evacuate because they had nowhere to go with their

pets. And we just saw the issue of people really

looking at pets as their family members and us, you

know, in the people serving business, the human services side

of of things, and the animal services side of things,

really just not stepping up to provide those support mechanisms

and support services to help people want, you know, be

able to evacuate safely.

And also just with recovery in general. I mean, sometimes

disasters happen when, when people are not at home, unfortunately,

you know, we, we've been seeing that lately with the

tornadoes and, and wildfires, you know, pe pets and people

get separated. And that becomes in of itself an issue

about reunification and making sure that the pets are well

cared for. And I think that shelters in general have

a big part to play in all of this. And

so with this preparedness toolkit that Best Friends is launching

this week, which we're really excited about, the first piece

of it is, are you individually prepared? You and your

workforce? And then the next piece of it is, is

your workplace prepared?

You know, how do you shore up, you know, making

sure that that if, if it's a specific type of

disaster, that you know exactly what actions you need to

take so that you're keeping your staff and the animals

and your, and your facility safe. And then when you've

got that sort of taken care of, it's almost like

the airplane adage, don't put the oxygen mask on somebody

else first. You have to put on yourself first before

you can help others. So the next piece of this

toolkit is really launching when a shelter is, you know,

ticked off those two boxes, individual preparedness, workplace preparedness, how

can they now play a part in helping their community

prepare and recover in a disaster? That's been like a

big sort of missing piece across the board.

I know that there are certainly lots of shelters and,

and animal service industry folks that step up and step

in to help support their community in a disaster, but

we have to see that on a much larger scale,

especially with the intensity and magnitude of these disasters. They're,

they're not slowing down, they're only just getting started, unfortunately.

And so, you know, we, we need all of the

help that we can get, and I think plugging in

the animal services industry into the emergency management side of

things is really gonna make a big difference.

So this emergency preparedness toolkit, as you said, it launched

this week. It is right now available on the Best

Friends network website. We'll have links in the show notes

area of your podcast player. In the last episode, we

talked to a couple of vets about the updates to

the Association of Shelter Veterinarians Guidelines for Standards of Care

and Animal Shelters. And those guidelines. Looking at that document,

it's like, I can just feel the work that went

into it. And I get very much the same feeling

from this Sharon. Really impressive stuff. You know, you and

your team, you've really thought about every aspect of emergency

planning, but what I think is key, and I want

people to know, is that it isn't just words on

a page. There are, by my count, 19 different resources

for folks to use from plan templates to job descriptions.

Yeah. Like any organization can use them, customize 'em, put

your own logo in, create your own plan. So you

know, you're not just giving people the information, but you're

also giving them tools to develop their own plans, which

is so great.

Yeah, thank you. I, you know, the, it's, it's almost

a, it's a very daunting thought that preparing for disasters,

like for people who don't think and breathe and eat

this stuff like I do, you know, how do you

even get started? So we wanted to try and make

it as easy as possible. And really by, by having

a workbook that guides you through the different templates that

you would need to just plug and play your own

information into, to, at the end of the day, have

a comprehensive plan that's really as easy as it gets.

And we try to make it as simple and as

easy to follow as possible. And I think that with

the use of the QR codes, with all the different

templates, I think that's gonna really just help make it

less daunting, I guess, less intimidating.

And the reality is that, you know, there's, there's not

a, a foolproof solution for disasters, you know, so it's

literally how much work does someone wanna put into it

to get, you know, a very comprehensive plan. So we've,

we've done the legwork, we've put the template, the comprehensive

template together, it's just now a matter of, you know,

a shelter that's taking a look at it to say,

okay, well this is my information and it goes here.

And, and even the workbook walks through exactly each field

and what you need to put into each field so

that you get your own comprehensive customized plan at the

end of the day. And it also walks you through

the different hazards or threats that your, your location, your

region is, you know, susceptible to.

So there's a hazard analysis template that lets you rate

on a scale of one to five what the likelihood

is of a disaster to impact your facility or even

your region. And then that kind of helps you determine

what you're planning for. So, you know, you, you plan

for a wildfire differently than you'd plan for a tornado.

So it just kind of helps you understand exactly what

you're planning for and what templates you need to use

to get tho those plans. And it might be more

than, than one plan. So that's what this toolkit does.

And we're, we're super excited and, and really hoping to

kind of marry that with some mentorship coaching with shelters

that really need some support in getting through this.

There are so many different types of organizations and animal

welfare, municipal shelters, privately run organizations, nonprofits, some with contracts

to provide services, some without friends of groups, transport groups,

spay-neuter, foster-based, all playing different roles. And, and that's the

case in an emergency. Also, I, I believe I'm correct

in saying that municipal shelters and those with contracts may

actually have a legal obligation to assist, to provide shelter

in those moments where other, whereas others may not. But

you understand that and the toolkit reflects that.

Yeah. So this toolkit is aimed at the animal services

industry, and that literally is exactly what you're talking about.

It's, it's shelters and rescues and vet clinics and boarding

facilities and doggy daycare facilities. Literally anyone who has a

hand at animal care can use this toolkit to create

their own comprehensive emergency response plan or emergency preparedness plan.

That's really what it's aimed at. It's not specific to

shelters, it's just anyone who cares for animals and has

volunteer po potential volunteers and has staff. You know, there,

there are mechanisms to that address each one of those

facets in, in the planning process.

As I said earlier, we did the guidelines episode recently

and we just kind of jumped around and talked about

some different elements of it, and I think it worked

okay. So if you're okay with it, I think we

can just start with the essential services section and template

and then go from there.

Yeah. So there are different documents that help you determine

ahead of a disaster, cuz that's whole, the, the key

is doing all of the work ahead of a disaster,

right? Because during a disaster, you're not gonna start thinking,

oh, you know, I'm gonna put a plan together. That's,

that's literally not what it's for. But an essential services

document or template is basically you determining your business operation

from the HR payroll to, you know, to, to animal

care, to volunteering, just the day-to-day functionality, you determining what

essential means. And that's not a, you know, sort of

a, a demeaning concept.

It's if something is something were to occur, what operations

absolutely need to continue and what operations, what part of

the business. And, you know, operations side of it can

be suspended, can be temporarily, you know, lessened or decreased

what needs to be increased. So you're kind of getting

a sense of where you're gonna need to put more

resources depending on the type of disaster that's impacting your

facility. The pandemic, for instance, right? A lot of us

had to really think through what we needed to kind

of shift around. Obviously people weren't gonna be coming into

the facility, so maybe intake was lessened, but animal care

operations was increased, you know, so you're just kind of

like figuring out due to the disaster and the circumstances

that come with it, which essential services need additional support

and which ones are you suspending or reducing or whatnot.

And that's really what that template does. It just walks

you through, if you're in the animal services industry and

you're using that template, you're kind of listing out all

of your business operations and then you're determining what essential

functions would absolutely need to occur and which ones would

need to shift based on the disasters. So that's why

we have the hazard analysis as one of the first

resources that you go through. And then you start walking

your, working your way through the planning documents.

And just to be super clear, in case we haven't

been this toolkit is any kind of disaster, like not

just the ones that might pop into your head when

I say the word disaster, like a hurricane, anything that

is a disruption to operations, basically.

Yeah, absolutely. Could even mean a building fire. You know,

their shelters, you know, we, we just supported a shelter

not too long ago that had a a, a fire.

So it, it was, it's literally anything, anything that causes

a disruption to your day-to-day operations, that's what an emergency

is. So that's, that's what these, this toolkit will help

you figure out what is that emergency for you or

what are those emergencies for you, because it could be

more than one thing too. And it usually is.

Let's talk about the evacuation plan template. Part of that

includes a coordinator for the evacuation, right? You've got a

task description in there. So when I was going through

it, I was laughing because it made me think, do

you watch The Office, the TV show? Yes. British or

American, I suppose. Cause we got Gareth and one Dwight

the other.

Okay, everybody, this is not test. Look to the exit.

I was specifically thinking about the fire drill episode.

Panic is warranted. This is not a drill. Arm at

your side, please.

Like he and Angela are screaming at their colleague to

get out.

Do you wanna die? Do you wanna die? Out. Stanley,

have you ever seen a burn victim? Move to the

exit.

And I was thinking, you kind of need a Dwight

Schrute, someone who's willing and able to lead these efforts,

not in his style, obviously. Screaming at people, asking if

they wanna die, not okay. But the point remains that

while most organizations, you know, won't be in a position,

may not be in a position to have a full-time,

Sharon of their own folks will still need to be

tapped. Even if you have a Sharon, you still need

to tap folks across the organization to be involved in

this. These are incredibly important roles. And because it's disaster

prep, we gotta be on top of it, right? We

gotta do drills, regular intervals, we gotta make sure the

plans are always up to date. All of that is

work, Sharon, and more work. It's a difficult thing to

ask of folks right now. And you know, of course

finding the right people is important.

So talk me through that process, Sharon. How do I

find my much more chill version of Dwight Schrute? How

do I organize this in a way where it's getting

done in getting done correctly?

Yeah, I, you know it, that's a great question and

it's gonna be different for everybody. You do just need

that one person who finds the value and the necessity

in making this happen. The good and the bad of

it is that it can take as long as you

want it to take to create, but the bad of

it is that something can happen while you're creating it.

And that's, you know, that's why if you devote, it's

kind of like that long-term investment. You know, you, you,

you put in all the work and you get that

investment at the end of the day. And that's really

what you want. You want somebody to be able to,

and it shouldn't actually even be done by one person.

It's just one person who can, you know, kind of

lead the charge and keep a project plan of what

needs to be done next.

But the information has to be coming from everybody that

is part of that essential services. You know, so like

the animal care operators, the volunteer program manager, the foster

program manager, you know, all of those folks are gonna

have an essen, you know, some essential information to add

into those plans. And so you wanna make sure that

you're gathering that information from everybody. But does everyone need

to sit down like one hour every day to create

this? Absolutely not. It's literally just figuring out what it

is that you need, what kind of information you need

to gather from everyone based on the workbook. And the

workbook does app, you know, actually ask you questions. So

it kind of guides you through what sort of information

you do need to gather.

So the work's already done for you. You just need

to identify who it is within your organization or your

agency that you need to go to, to ask those

questions, to get, gather that information and plug it into

the template. This is a living, breathing document, so it

never ends per se. Like you're always gonna be about

95% done because every disaster is gonna throw a different

type of curve ball. So every event that happens, you

might notice, hey, you know what, in the plan it

says this, but what we actually did and it worked

better was this, so let's update the plan. So you're,

you're constantly working through, you know, how to update the

plan. And even in our toolkit, we actually add a

section on exercising the plan, which is really important because

that's where you can, in a safe environment, gather the

data of all the gaps in shortfalls that might exist

that you haven't included in your plan because you didn't

get to practice it.

So that's really important as well. For those facilities and

organizations that have already lived through disasters. And unfortunately there

are probably many listening to this podcast, but you know,

they, they might already know what has worked for them.

And so they might have semblance of, Hey, you know

what? We've done this before. We can add that information

into our plan if they don't have a plan. But

for many of the other shelters and, and rescues and,

and all of those animal care industry folks, they may

not have experienced this. So this might be a first

time going through this, thinking through this. So that's gonna

be really important for them to exercise it at the

end of the day, even maybe even exercise it, it,

you know, on to a small degree once a year

just to keep it fresh and also identify where those

shortfalls are in the information so that they, they can,

you know, they can continue to practice it.

It's almost like a fire drill. You're practicing it, it's

top of mind for you and your staff. Everybody kind

of knows what rules and responsibilities they'll fall into if

something were to occur. But you're also gathering information back

to, to better shore up your plan.

But again, make sure you're not full on Dwight Schrute,

right? So I, I think most places today probably have

some semblance of a, of a emergency plan, evacuation plan,

depending on where they are. Certainly those in the Gulf

Coast region in Florida. But even if you have a

plan, I think the toolkit is so comprehensive that the

vast majority, even those who are very used to disasters

are still gonna find this helpful. There may be things

they may have missed that going through this process will

help identify for them, but also it may help you

find efficiencies, some different way of ways of doing things.

We, you know, my department, we just moved within the

organization to a different area. So we've got new leadership

and we're getting to know each other and we realize

we didn't have some basic stuff written down, like a

current contact list.

We have an organizational one, we have each other's contact

info in some cases, or at least we thought we

did, but in an emergency I'm used to getting ahold

of, of so-and-so through Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams might not

be available during that time, right? I may not have

access to those types of tools. So it just incredibly

important to make sure you have even just basic stuff

like that

Together. Right. No, that's such a good point. I mean,

we get so caught up in our day-to-day, you hit

speed dial on your cell phone to dial people, but

you actually know their number, you know, it's like, it's

that kind of thing, you know, having it written down.

You know, for a disaster there are two options. You're

either gonna evacuate, you're gonna shelter in place, right? And

so when you're evacuating thinking about how many sy types

of scenarios where you're gonna be forced to evacuate, like

a building fire, a hurricane, things of that nature where

you're actually evacuating. You are thinking about what do I

need, what do I need to gather in those moments?

But if the threat is imminent, you're not gonna have

time to gather those pertinent documents and, you know, your,

your your cell phone and your car keys and all

you, you might actually just have to run.

And so having this document and evacuation plan, and I

think we alluded to talking about it a little earlier

as evacuation action plan, which is part of the template.

The, the toolkit is gonna be really important cuz it

has all of that pertinent information from your staff cell

phones to even the vendors that may have been scheduled

to come that day, you know, that may need to

be rerouted or rescheduled to, you know, transports that might

be happening that day or tomorrow, the next day when

your facility is, you know, undergoing a displacement. You know,

you just, you need to like have all those numbers

at the ready and this evacuation template that you would

put the work into gathering and customizing would have all

of that.

So you're literally ga you're, you're grabbing it and going,

it's at the foot of your door. That's what we

encourage people to do, is have it at the exit.

You're, someone just grabs a copy of it and you

go and it has all of that pertinent information so

you can make all those necessary phone calls that you

need to, to alert people to the situation.

So I attended our local TED events for a number

of years, TEDx Grand Rapids, and one of the first

speakers I heard probably 10 years ago now was the

futurist for Ford Motor Company. It was her job to

look into the future and understand how different events, factors,

internal, external, how they might affect the company. An example

she gave was the price of a barrel of oil,

which at the time in her story was like $15

a barrel or something. So they thought, well what would

happen if it went to 25 or 40? And then

just for fun, they did one that was a scenario

of what if, if oil went to a hundred dollars

a barrel,The which everyone kind of shrugged at and laughed

at and thought, what a waste of time. Right? It's

never gonna get that high. But what if it did?

What would the price of gas be? The price of

goods, what would consumers be looking for?

Probably more fuel efficient cars, right? So they engaged a

lot of different folks in those conversations, different departments, engineering,

design, marketing. And hearing her talk about that, it really

blew my mind. A and of course oil did go

on to become that expensive and just that little bit

of effort and thinking about the impacts, it made the

world of difference. And Ford did very well at a

time when other manufacturers didn't, they weren't able to shift

and meet the, that current reality of a hundred dollars

a barrel. So, you know, it's hard to ask people

to do more when they're already strapped, but this is

truly life and death stuff. Yeah. And you know what

we do? It ain't motor cars, right? It's, it's lives

of people and their pets.

Yeah. It's almost like you, you, you don't know what

you don't know and you know, someone bringing up a

topic if you're not living in the moment, like we're

not, you know, at the beginning of Covid and you're

like, we didn't think supply chain issues was gonna be

a result of covid, right? Like, that was gonna actually

impact us the way it did. You know, again, it's

just one of those things where if you start to,

if someone puts it in your head and you start

to, you have that aha moment and you start to

think about what that actually means for you specifically in

your industry and your facility, then you're gonna start to

see a spiraling effect of maybe potentially different other indirect

or direct impacts to you.

And that, again, if the timing's right and you're thinking

about that ahead of a disaster, then you can look

at ways to strategize and brainstorm with your team on

how to solve for it ahead of time, make those

partnerships happen. And that there's actually a section in the

toolkit that talks about partnerships and the importance of partnerships

and looking at it from the perspective of leaning on

different types of industries like transport industries and storage facilities

for extra supplies in case you need it. And you

know, looking at vet clinics, if you don't have a

vet vet clinic or if you're, if you're evacuating and

you need a vet clinic to help support some injuries

on, you know, with some animals that you have, and

a lot of these groups already have these types of

partnerships, maybe it's about increasing the partnerships or maybe if

you think about it, if you're partners that already exist

are in the same vicinity of you and you're impacted

by a disaster, maybe they're also impacted by a disaster

and therefore you can't lean on them.

So looking at developing partnerships maybe further away across town

or in the town over, that might actually also be

just part of the redundancy that you build into your,

into your planning so that if something were to occur

to plan A, then you have plan B to rely

on. But yeah, it's, it's literally all about thinking. You

just kind of need that one thought to be put

into your head for your brain to start. That's how

I, my brain works. If, if someone just says one

thing, I start to think about all of these other

things that could be a ripple effect of that one

thing. And, you know, and, and start to look at,

well what would, what would I do if that happened?

And that's really, I'm hoping that this toolkit will start

to lend itself to having people think that way.

You know, what, what would we do if that happened?

And then start to put that into a, a written

plan.

The partnership stuff's so key, as you said, the partners

you normally rely on for different things, depending on what

the emergency is, where they are, they may be in

the exact same spot. Right. So what do you do

then? Yeah, one of my favorite soapbox issues always is

gonna be developing partnerships, yet another reason why it is

so critical to develop these ahead of time.

Yeah, I mean, in, in the emergency management industry, we

call that mutual aid. And really it's looking at how,

how do I help you when you need it, and

how do you help me when I need it? That

is very important. Looking at like, you know, a two

-deep or a three-deep type of partnership where, you know,

it's one's within your community, one's a little further out

and one's maybe in another state or on the other

side of the state. That is always a good rule

of thumb just because you just, you know, again, climate

change, things are happening on a broader scale. Things that

haven't happened in certain communities are now happening there. You

know, tornado season seems to be year round now. You

know, like it just, it's, it's just a whole host

of different things, changes to environmental concerns that will necessitates

us to think about things a little bit more deeply

and broadly than, than we did before.

And then the other thing I just wanted to mention

is, if you run a facility that has multiple, you

know, animals, different types of runs, if your facility is

significant in size, and I, I don't mean like hundreds

of animals, but even like 20, 30, you might wanna

also consider looking at what mechanism we're going to use

to prioritize the order of animals evacuating. Because one of

the things that I notice is that when an event

happens, you don't want people, people stepping on each other

to get to the same run or to get to

the same, you know, walk through the same door to

get the same animals. You wanna maximize the efficiency of

lifesaving.

So you wanna think about, you know, are we, are

we looking at dogs first? Are we gonna do cats

first? Are we looking at medical animals first? Are we

looking at healthy animals first? Like, how are we assigning

the responsibility of moving animals out in a timely fashion

so that we can maximize life-saving and we can, you

know, make sure that everyone's safe in doing so and

nobody's tripping over each other. And that's actually one of

the documents as well, and the preparedness toolkit is talking

you through that. How are you gonna think about which

order of, you know, are you going right to left,

back to front, that sort of thing. So you're thinking

about that ahead of time and you're, you're even making

assignments if you need to with staff and, and volunteers

if you have them.

You know, that way when something happens, everyone kind of

falls into place and gets as many animals out as

possible, especially when it's an imminent threat.

So there's a new show on Apple TV called Extrapolations.

I dunno if you've seen it, but it's a look

into the future with a world that is significantly impacted

by climate change. I have not. I will say it

feels very real and it's kind of scary and definitely

has got me thinking about those what ifs. Right? And

you know, again, you said it early on in this

chat, the, the seasons, hurricane, tornado, wildfire, they're all getting

longer, the storms more severe. Clearly we're finding things like

pandemics are real possibilities. Something in human nature about not

wanting to think about those things. Maybe, you know, it's

far away, I just wanna think about good stuff. I

got a lot in front of me today, whatever. But

the future is coming whether you want it or not,

and we're already starting to see it.

It can be scary, but that doesn't mean, not thinking

about it means it won't happen, right? So a plea

from me, please check out this toolkit and just make

sure you and your organization make sure you are ready.

Yeah,

I, you know, and I don't want it to be

scary. That's, that's one of the reasons why we created

it. So that is less scary. And we are here

to help support groups that do want this, to walk

them through it and talk them through it so they're

not as intimidated by it. But it is unfortunately a

case of Murphy's Law. You know, like, I think I've

mentioned this on a previous podcast, I'm a big fan

of Murphy. So if you have the plan, you may

not ever need it, but if you don't have the

plan, you're gonna be screwed because it's a matter of

when not if anymore, if a disaster's not impacted you

wherever you are, it may just be a matter of

time.

So, you know, it's just better to have something in

place and think through all of the different scenarios, put

it together in this comprehensive template and work through it

with your team. You know, rescues and shelters have been

such a big part of emergencies in communities. They often

deal with the fallback from emergencies with owner surrenders and

being able to board animals that are displaced, collecting strays

that come in. It's not like they're never impacted, it's

just a matter of how are they gonna deal with

it if they themselves are directly impacted and still need

to have this relationship with the community to help support

them.

And you know, again, this, this toolkit is one of

two pieces. The second piece will be coming out shortly

as well where you're preparing for your workplace. And once

your workplace is prepared, now it's just a matter of

going through that second toolkit that walks you through how

to best support your community in a disaster. And that's

what we're really hoping to see more of, more efficient

community support with shelters and rescues and the animal services

industry as a whole in those times of need.

Well of course, we'll let everyone know when that second

piece is available, Sharon, but right now in your show

notes, you'll find a link to the toolkit. You can

also go to bestfriends.org/podcast. Click the link for episode 145.

Sharon, thank you to you and your team for this

Herculean effort putting this amazing free emergency preparedness toolkit together

for everyone to use.

All right, thanks Jon.

Thank you to Kayla Sebo, Whitney Bliton and Kim Clonch

for helping to produce this program. My name is Jon

Dunn and this is the Best Friends podcast.