Being Prepared- Physically: Start to acquire items for a "GO BAG"

Last week, I think I was a bit ambitious.  I know it was a lot of info for one week.  I actually already have my 72 hour kits, but I did use the time to go through them and had to purchase more food items.  I think the key is to rotate every six months, so you are not throwing away items.  I have heard of a few ways to remember to do this and they can be used in conjunction with each other.  One way is to rotate the items every General Conference weekend.  The next is to use the 72 hour kit once a year to go camping.  I have not done this, but I think it would be very beneficial.  By doing this you will know that you have the things in your kit that you actually will need and use in an emergency situation, where you might need to be away from home.

For this week, I have chose to keep things a little bit simpler.  I would like to start gathering items for "Go Bags" for every family member.  The purpose of these bags, is they would have the personal needs for each family member, they would be able to grab in an emergency.  They will be kept in their bedrooms where they will have access to them to Grab and Go.  They will need to be the right size for the family member.  You would not want to get a huge backpacking back pack for a 5 year old.

So, to begin our "Go Bags" we are going to obtain the backpack.  Some ideas are:  If you have school age children you could use their old backpacks.  There are drawstring backpacks that are very inexpensive to purchase and at times you can get these for free.  I recently went to a college football game and they were giving them away at the gate.  There are also patterns online if you would like to whip one up your self.  Or another option is purchasing zip up backpacks from the store.  The most inexpensive one I have seen is $5.  You decide what will work best for your family. Next week, we will begin getting things to put into these bags.  I am actually doing these for my kids for Christmas.  They might not be the funnest gift, but I consider them a bonus gift.

GOAL FOR THIS WEEK:  GATHER BACKPACKS FOR EACH FAMILY MEMBER