By: Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The Clallam County Emergency Management Section of the Sheriff’s Office is calling all volunteers.
During this pandemic, dedicated volunteers have been instrumental in the agency’s ability to perform a broad range of services including Incident Management in the Emergency Operations Center, contact tracing with Health and Human Services, county-wide deliveries of supplies to hospitals and other facilities, quarantine support, field testing sites, and aiding the food drives that are occurring each weekend.
But after 6 months, Undersheriff Ron Cameron tells us that many of these volunteers could use a break.
“You know, they’ve been committed since the 2nd of March and, you know, we’re not standing up every day now, but still, there’s just so many different things that were utilizing the community for to get the job done. They show up every day that we ask them to and, you know, it’s just kind of time that we kind of need to replenish that field.”
Cameron says he’s not necessarily looking for daily commitments or specialized skills. Many volunteers are just on-call for those days when many hands make light work.
“You know, all of a sudden we’ll get a call from the state and we have a truck full of PPE that we need to store and stuff. So there’s a lot of muscle that we need sometimes, too.”.
The weekend food drives in the Port Angeles area, for instance, are about a two-hour commitment on a Saturday. Others are just to sit by a phone. And even other commitments may ask for a few hours a couple of days a week.
Have a little time to lend a hand and help your community get through this pandemic? Contact Undersheriff Ron Cameron via email at rcameron@co.clallam.wa.us or Anne Chastain at achastain@co.clallam.wa.us and leave them your number.