Silicon Valley MLK Day

by Sarah Snyder


There is never a dull day in the lives of the Silicon Valley Chapter California Safe Corps members Sarah Snyder, Autumn Kresha, Crisanta Garcia, Pooja Trivedi, and Amel Ali. While they spend most of their day’s base jumping to ground zero of local disasters, saving cats from burning building and babies from trees they got up but can’t seem to get down, they slowed down the pace to educate the Silicon Valley youth club members for their first Service Day of 2011 on Martin Luther King Day.

House fires are devastating, and in many cases, easily preventable. Many are the result of carelessness: a candle left lit, a stove burner unattended, a forgotten blanket tossed over a space heater. In light of the increase in house fires seen in Santa Clara County in the last two years, the American Red Cross Silicon Valley Chapter’s youth services and CSC AmeriCorps put on a day of fire safety education and awareness. Forty-five middle and high school students woke up early on their day off and showed up for the event, which began with a 9:00am disaster presentation by Red Cross club student officers. Local firefighters were invited to talk about fire safety and tour the clubs around the response vehicles. All participants were then broken down into groups, given packages of fire safety door hangers, and sent out to different neighborhoods to discuss this important issue with members of our community. We distributed 1000 door hangers total and enjoyed hitting the sidewalks and physically starting the conversation with our neighbors in San Jose.