Fairfax Medical Reserve Corps Needs Volunteers

Are you willing to help your community during a public health emergency? Here is an opportunity!

The Fairfax County Health Department, in cooperation with the Fairfax County Citizen Corps Council, is recruiting volunteers for the Fairfax Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). To date, approximately 3,000 medical and non-medical volunteers are signed up and receiving training.

The all-volunteer MRC is designed to augment the capacity of the public health system to respond to large scale events related to bioterrorism or natural, widespread epidemics. During a public health emergency, MRC volunteers would staff dispensing sites where vaccination or medication would be provided to county residents, usually at a local high school. To accomplish this, 54 teams of 232 people per team are needed.

"Despite the name of the program, the majority of the volunteers neededfor the Medical Reserve Corps are individuals without a medical background," said Donna Foster, MRC coordinator for the Health Department.

Especially needed are seasoned, experienced managers to fill MRC leadership positions, including incident coordinator, branch director, volunteer coordinator and unit leader. All volunteers will receive the necessary training to fulfill their responsibilities.

Representatives of the Fairfax MRC are available to present information about the program and Fairfax County's public health emergency response plan to community organizations. To request a presentation, please contact Donna Foster, MRC Coordinator, via e-mail at donna.foster@fairfaxcounty.gov, or by calling on 703-246-2433, TTY 703-591-6435.

Those wishing to volunteer may register online at www.fairfaxmrc.org, or by calling 703-246-2433, TTY 703-591-6435.

Note: This is copied directly from a handout sent to the association.