Annual Citizen Corps Preparedness Night and Send Off for Bob George

On June 5th, the Delaware, New Castle County, and Wilmington OEM/Citizen Corps Councils sponsored the annual Citizen Corps Preparedness Night. Our partner organizations, the Public Health Preparedness Section, the Medical Reserve Corps, and the Red Cross also cosponsored the event. Marny McLee, Acting Citizen Corps Program Manager, sang the National Anthem at the beginning of the game. Steve Edwards of FEMA Region III’s Individual and Preparedness Division threw out the first pitch. Two preparedness exercises were held at the event. First, during the 7th inning stretch, the Blue Rocks Mascot Rocky simulated phoning his Emergency Contact for the fans and asked them to do the same. At the end of the game, Citizen Corps families’ youth practiced the earthquake “Stop, Cover, and Hold” drill on the field with Rocky.

The evening was also a surprise celebration send off for previous Citizen Corps Program Manager Robert J. (Bob) George, who stepped down effective June 1, 2015. Delaware Emergency Management Director Turner, Director George Giles (City of Wilmington OEM), Director Colin Falkner (Dover OEM), and Emergency Coordinator Dave Carpenter (New Castle County OEM) presented Bob with certificates of appreciation for his twelve years as the Citizen Corps and CERT Program Manager. Marny also presented Bob with a personal gift and, at the conclusion of the game, a picture show was displayed on the Jumbo-Tron to commemorate Bob’s years of doing outreach for the State of Delaware.

Bob led Delaware Citizen Corps from a program that did not exist in Delaware in February 2004, to being honored by FEMA at the White House in September 2014 as the best State Citizen Corps Council in the Nation! We would like to wish him congratulations and the best of luck during his retirement.