Welcome intrepid BOCH CERT fans! Boy Howdy have we been busy this spring and if you haven’t seen us around the Lower Cape, it’s probably because we were busy gearing, training, and getting ready to serve our communities even better than last year!

This February 20 CERT volunteers were sponsored by the towns of Chatham and Harwich to receive CPR training and certification. Volunteers were selected by participation hours to go to this special training and learn about basic first aid, stop the bleed, triage, Narcan training, CPR, and use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). These volunteers will now be certified for two years and add to the already CPR certified members on the team. It is leadership’s goal to have a majority of the volunteers at BOCH CERT CPR certified and able to support our first responders. A hardy THANK YOU to Harwich and Chatham for the opportunity to train and serve.

Then we ran off and gave out hundreds and hundreds of COVID Test Kits to the people of Chatham, Brewster, and Orleans…plus our weekly COVID Test Site working with the Medical Reserve Corps located in the Brewster DPW where we’ve tested thousands of people since it’s start. Whew!

Not to brag or anything, but we’ve got some of the best volunteers on the Cape here at BOCH CERT. This February we honored several of them for their amazing dedication to coming out and helping our communities. For their efforts, the volunteers who put in the most time received toasty warm BOCH CERT Parkas and if this was their second year, silver stars! Shout out to Jane S, who turned out to more volunteer events, more trainings, more meetings than anyone else. She’s a shining star!

Last month some of our team headed off cape to the First Annual MEMA CERT Rodeo to meet and greet with other CERT teams in the state, get some training, check out the cool gear and equipment, and learn about funding. As BOCH CERT grows and helps out in our community, the communities we serve find us more and more ways to volunteer. We are only coming on 3 years since our founding and the fact that our Regional Council still reaches out to us for new opportunities goes to show how vital we are and how great the need was, even without the pandemic.

Oh then we did some Incident Command Training, Radio Training, we got some updated gear, and we were in a parade! Thanks to the town of Brewster for throwing the Brewster in Bloom parade this year honoring our hometown heroes (that’s us!) we had a great time both helping block off streets and participating in the parade! It’s not all about the work and training for us at BOCH CERT and that’s why we calendar events where we support community outside our emergency response purview. We call that our CERT CARES events and most of the one’s we participate in have been membership suggestions. Check out our CERT TRUCK thanks to Robert S and the parade crew!

Coming up in the Summer months we continue to staff the Tuesday Testing Clinic in Orleans, Brewster and Chatham town meetings, a live search and rescue training, the first leadership lecture, Mental Health First Aid class, and anywhere our communities need us to be. Thanks to Brewster, Orleans, Chatham, and Harwich along with our Regional Council and partners, especially MRC, for allowing us to serve the people and places we all love so much.