Latest / The Scene Projects / Coni Meyers on Disaster Preparedness, Community Impact, and Empowerment Initiatives

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Coni Meyers on Disaster Preparedness, Community Impact, and Empowerment Initiatives · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
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  I'm your host, Bubba Starts.
• 0:05
  And with me today from be prepared, be ready, Connie Myers.
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  Connie, welcome to the show.
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  I'm so excited.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  Well, I needed a little reminder, so I appreciate that you had my phone number and you
• 0:18
  made sure that I got the memo.
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  So, thank you for bearing with me today.
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  And, yeah, surprise interview for me now with a good friend.
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  Before we get too far into it, I know we have some overlap in the worlds that we are in.
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  But why don't you go ahead and give our, give our listeners and viewers a little bit of
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  backstory, and then we'll kind of dive into what you're up to now.
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  Okay.
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  Well, I used to say I was like a cat with nine lives, nine different careers.
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  And in reality, what I learned over these last few years is that everything I've done has been
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  in training for what I'm doing today.
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  I was a FEMA inspector and trainer for seven years.
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  I did over 50 disasters myself and trained over thousands of inspectors.
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  And I used to always say when I was doing my leadership stuff and my my retreats and all
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  that, what does that theme of stuff have to do with anything that I'm doing today?
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  And then in 02/2019, the California Association of Realtors who has my leadership stuff, they
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  asked me to put together a course on disasters.
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  And so I wrote a simple little three hour course that I presented at their big
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  convention.
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  And then I had a panel for all.
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  They have about 250 education people around the state.
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  And so I put a panel together that had a, director of the FEMA.
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  We had the head of the LA County CERT program, the community emergency response team program.
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  And then I had the association executive from Santa Barbara that went through the fires and
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  the mudslides there.
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  Hundred and twenty nine people perished.
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  Three bodies have still never been found.
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  And then the Malibu fires from 02/2018, a friend of mine went through it.
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  Now she's gone through the ones that just happened.
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  But I'm sitting there moderating this panel, and I'm like, oh my god.
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  There is so much more that needs to be said.
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  So in the, in the 2019, I started writing a five hour certification course.
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  And I actually was writing about, pandemics in January.
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  Little did we know what was about to happen.
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  So I created a certification program, and I during COVID, during 2020 to 2021, I ended up
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  with 38 CCM advisers around the country that were realtors.
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  And I provide them every single month with information pertinent to their location.
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  So it didn't matter whether they were in Florida or California or Oregon.
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  And I was sending out this information.
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  I was doing the videos.
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  I was sending them a transcript so they could do the videos, and they loved the training.
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  They all told me how much they loved it, but they weren't doing anything with it.
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  And the whole goal was for them to become community leaders.
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  I was speaking at the National Natural Disaster Expo, and after I got done, a woman walked up
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  to me and she said, you need to be a nonprofit and you need to be protecting kids.
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  So I went back to our booth and I said, you know, we're applying for our five zero one c
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  three, and our whole goal is to protect kids.
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  And the conversation went from me think them thinking I'm trying to sell them something to
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  saying, how can I be involved?
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  And that's when I knew I was onto something.
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  So that was the beginning of our our beprepared,beready.org.
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  And my goal was to put together a program, and we now have it just launched last week.
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  It's called kits for kids, and it's a kit.
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  I don't know if you can see this or not.
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  This is what it looks like.
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  Let me see if I can hold it back far enough.
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  It gets Velcroed into the bottom of a kid's everyday backpack.
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  So it goes to school, the playground, activities.
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  And in it is, first of all, a global company that has a alert system.
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  They alert everything from terrorist attacks to abductions.
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  And and so the kids can track where the child is.
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  It has something called bleed stop, which is a company out of Minnesota.
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  They're amazing.
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  They have a powder that will stop a small cut to a large wound.
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  And and then other basic n 95 mask, just basic other safety stuff.
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  But that is the carrot.
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  That is the carrot.
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  The carrot is to get the kids involved, and that's really important because 76% do you have
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  children?
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  I do.
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  I have three.
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  Okay.
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  Well, then you're gonna understand this.
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  Seventy six percent of kid of parents are worried about their kids' fears, anxiety,
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  depression, potential suicide.
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  Suicide has tripled over the last few years.
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  Kids are worried, is there gonna be a planet for me to live on?
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  Am I gonna be able to am I gonna get shot?
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  Am I gonna be bullied in school?
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  Am I gonna be harassed online?
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  Am I gonna go to school?
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  Am I gonna be able to get a job?
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  My kids now they're in their late fifties because I'm 77.
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  So they're in their late fifties.
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  My kids never had to worry about that, and my grandkids never had to worry about all that.
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  So our goal is to help kids become empowered because mental health experts agree that the
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  best way for kids to overcome those fears and anxieties is to empower them and become
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  activists.
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  So the second part of the program is our, young voices, big impact ambassador program.
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  So when we go into and this is all community based.
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  So wherever you are, this is gonna be coming to your town.
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  And we're asking kids to submit 13 to 17, a one minute video about why they wanna be the kids
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  for kids spokesperson in their community.
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  And then we we have everybody's involved with us in that community vote on a boy and a girl
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  that they're number one ambassadors.
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  But now what do we have?
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  We have an army of kids that have said they want to be involved, they want to be empowered,
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  and what can we do with those kids?
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  We can empower them to become something magnificent in their community, And we can
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  address all kinds of issues, not just disasters and not just being prepared, but all kinds of
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  mental health issues.
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  What happens when you're a foster child?
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  What happens when you're adopted?
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  What happens if you don't have money for shoes?
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  All those kinds of things can become a part of what we're calling our community recipient
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  voices, which is our kids.
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  So I know that's a little bit long description, but that's that's where we are.
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  We just launched our first, event last week.
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  It's taken me three and a half years, Bubba, to get to this point, and it more than met my
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  expectations.
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  And the we we're partnered with a nonprofit, which is a global nonprofit.
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  They're not really heard of outside of Las Vegas, but they're well known here called
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  Opportunity Village.
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  And they provide, life skills and job skills for people that are on the spectrum or have
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  developmental issues.
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  They put the kids together.
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  So what we did is even though it says kits for kids, this kit's for anybody that needs kit.
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  Right?
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  And that's everybody.
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  So we we had the first recipients be the people that put the kids together, and it was
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  heartwarming.
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  It was I mean, I was in tears.
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  I I try I I lasted till the end, but it then I lost it.
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  But the goal is to really help us educate the communities around the country.
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  I have people waiting for me to bring this out to them.
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  And, I have to say it's very humbling to know that, people are are they they're not just
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  accepting this.
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  They are embracing it.
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  So I I cannot wait to come to South Dakota and to and to go to Florida and to go to Texas and
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  to go to I have people waiting in Colorado, and I have people waiting in Nebraska and Oregon
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  and Washington.
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  They all want these kits.
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  So that's why I wanted to reach out to you.
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  We had an amazing I know it was I forget which group it was, but whatever group we were on, I
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  was like, yeah.
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  This is a guide because you're wearing you're taking care of veterans, and veterans are a big
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  part of this.
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  And, again, the kit is nothing more than the carrot.
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  Because what I learned in my when I was doing my advisory council people is that adults are
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  busy.
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  They know they need to be prepared, but it's called FEMA calls it preparedness,
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  procrastination.
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  It's just like everybody knows they need to have a will, and only 50% of us do.
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  It's because we have to think about being prepared or we have to think about dying.
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  So this is the carrot to help the veterans, to help the adults.
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  My ultimate goal is to help 30,000,000 people be better prepared and more sustainable.
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  I love it, Connie.
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  And I love that you're long winded.
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  You make my job very easy.
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  You might have run through the whole show right there.
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  Uh-oh.
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  I'm sorry.
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  No.
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  It's it's beautiful.
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  You're so passionate about what you're doing, and I'm so happy for you to finally see them in
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  the hands of individuals and to see, like you said, not just, you know, you know, excited
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  about it, but engaging and really thrilled to put it out there and to go out there.
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  I think what you're giving people is you're conquering fear not with you're conquering fear
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  with confidence.
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  Right?
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  You're you're you're replacing that feeling with the feeling of confidence, with
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  preparedness.
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  Right?
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  And that's how we feel confident is when we feel prepared.
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  And I think that's the only way that you can do it, and it's so great to, how do you how do you
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  get confident adults?
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  Right?
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  Well, you don't wait till they're an adult, and then that's why we have kids sports.
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  Right?
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  I think kids sports is a big reason to build confidence in their skills and things.
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  So why not take that to all the other facets?
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  Why not take it to their health and their well-being and their preparedness in case of an
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  emergency?
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  Because it's very easily very easy to be paralyzed by fear, and I'm sure in your vast
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  experience that you've seen that plenty.
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  Even the most prepared people, even if they haven't had the experience, right, that they
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  can still, you can be as prepared as you want to, but not having put your hands on the tools,
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  the kits, or whatever they may be, you're you're still gonna be overcome with that, you
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  know, not knowing what to do.
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  And I feel like you are starting this at the very bottom, like you said, with a very tasty
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  carrot.
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  Look at these kits that are gonna help parents feel more secure sending their child to school
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  every day.
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  We just had another one and just a tragic events.
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  And the way we overcome that is by everyone being more confident and more prepared in their
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  lives.
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  And these kits are gonna be a great tool to bring people into that world.
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  And then, of course, they can find more of your courses and things from there to help them be
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  even more prepared for life and disaster and emergencies.
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  Well, we're so, you know, I know you do a lot of work with veterans, and there's a lot of
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  PTSD, a lot of mental health issues.
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  And one of the one of one of the things I wanna do is to bring in the veterans and to bring in
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  they all have most of them have kids if they're married and and and give them a sense of I can
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  help my children.
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  I can help and and that's going to help their self esteem.
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  It's gonna help them deal with everything that they have to deal with.
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  And so that's I mean, I see it so largely encompassing.
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  And we have we're gonna have kits for seniors, kits with dis people with disabilities.
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  We're gonna have kits for pets.
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  And I don't know.
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  We need you and I need to talk about maybe a kit for veterans.
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  Yes.
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  And we would love that.
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  Obviously, operation combating veteran suicide.
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  You see the sign behind me here.
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  It's so near and dear to our hearts, and we have a mission there.
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  And and and I think speaking of missions, that's that's probably why we have the numbers
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  that we do.
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  You know?
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  Twenty two a day are are taking their own lives in this country because they feel like when
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  they get out that they no longer have a mission.
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  They no longer have a team that's behind them or that they're fighting for as well.
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  So we would love to talk about how our veterans can team up to even putting kids together or
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  doing whatever we can, delivering them into the schools and being, to give them a mission as
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  well.
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  I think that's a beautiful thing, Connie.
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  Absolutely.
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  I I'm I'm 100% for it.
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  And, well so I I I believe there's gonna be another conversation after this.
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  Yeah.
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  Of course.
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  There's always another conversation to be had.
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  Connie, is there anything that you didn't cover?
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  Well, I think the most important thing is to know what you need to do to be prepared.
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  And I'll give you my contact information if if somebody wants to get a copy of my digital
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  book, when the unthinkable happens, be prepared, be ready.
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  It has everything broken down, everything from the planning to the preparedness to what to do
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  to survive, and it has resources in it.
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  So my email address is Connie, spelled c o n I m e y e r s, at be prepared be ready.
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  And if you send me an email, I will send you a free copy.
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  Fantastic.
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  Is that dot com, Connie?
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  Yeah.
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  I I'm sorry.
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  It's dot org.
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  It's .org.
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  Dotorg.
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  Okay.
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  So bepreparedbeready.org.
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  Fantastic.
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  Well, Connie, I am sorry that I was a little bit late getting in with you today.
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  I'm so happy that you called me, and we got to have this conversation.
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  We cannot wait to work with you.
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  I will be sending you an email, as soon as we get off of this call so I can get my free book,
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  and we'll definitely be encouraging everyone else to do the same.
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  Connie Myers, thank you again for coming on the program today, and thank you for being part of
• 14:16
  the scene.
• 14:16
  Oh, it's my pleasure.
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  Absolute pleasure.
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  You're gonna come back soon and tell us how everything's been going, and we're gonna get
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  updates from you a couple times a year.
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  So you stay in touch.
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  Okay.
• 14:27
  Sounds great, Bubba.
• 14:27
  Thank you so much for having me.