Storage ideas exhibited
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Women of the Church need to help their families become more self-reliant, especially in terms of disaster preparation and food storage, said Mary Ellen W. Smoot, Relief Society general president. Toward that end, the Resource Center of the Relief Society Building in Salt Lake City now includes an exhibit on what is needed in terms of food storage to sustain "one person for one year" in the event of an emergency or hardship.
"We should be the examples to the women of the world in food storage and having whatever we need for our family in case of disaster," Sister Smoot said during an interview. She also hopes that members will have enough "perhaps to help others. How could you let a neighbor go hungry?"
Although Relief Society sisters should first have their families prepared, neighbors or relatives "who have had struggles and don't have what they need" may need help.
The exhibit, located in the Resource Center on the ground floor, includes food and basic necessities one person might use during one year. Also displayed are various preparedness items, such as an iceless refrigerator, a heat-retention stove, approved dry-pack products and medical kits. Such items as the refrigerator and stove are intended for when there is limited or no power. For example, the iceless refrigerator is a wood structure upon which material soaked in water is hung. The enclosed structure can keep milk, eggs and other foods cool. Instructions on how to build these items are available at the display.
Also included in the exhibit in the dry-pack section are examples such as storing dried food in PETE plastic bottles with oxygen absorbing packets. (Oxygen absorbers are available at Church Welfare Services centers.) PETE plastic bottles are what many juices and other items are sold in today at grocery stores. The PETE emblem can be found next to the recycling emblem on the bottom of the container.
The exhibit, Sister Smoot said, is ongoing. She hopes people coming to Salt Lake City for the April general conference will visit the display for ideas to take home for home, family and personal enrichment meetings and for family home evenings.
"Self-reliance is so important," she said. She referred to 11 families of the Manhattan (N.Y.) 4th Ward who in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center could not return to their apartments because of the proximity to the disaster site. "One ward just started preparing plates of food and distributing them to workers," she added, speaking of relief efforts on the part of members. The stake Relief Society president was among those preparing food when others realized she was also one of those displaced from her home. She told the others, 'This is the best place I can be.' "
Because of that Relief Society president's own preparation, Sister Smoot emphasized, she was thus able to help others. Sister Smoot added that members should know — in the event of a disaster — where to find a nurse, a doctor, how to turn off the gas, "those basic things of how to care for ourselves. We can be healers and help those around us.
"We have got to focus on self-reliance — having our own and enough to care for others."
The Relief Society Resource Center is open weekdays from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
E-mail: julied@desnews.com
