2007 Lake Michigan Catholic Community Emergency Response Team Graduates

Lake Michigan Catholic High School was invited by Sergeant Richard Smiedendorf and the St. Joseph Police Department to pilot a Homeland Security Program in Berrien County called TEEN CERT-  Community Emergency Response Team. 

What is TEEN CERT? 

TEEN CERT is a training program that prepares students to help themselves, family, and school in the event of a disaster.  During an incident, emergency service personnel may not be able to reach everyone right away.  By getting trained in Teen CERT students will have the skills to help emergency responders, save lives, and protect property.  As members of a teen CERT team, students can respond to disasters, participate in drills and exercises, and take additional training.   

What do TEEN CERT teams do in an emergency? 

Under the direction of school and local emergency responders, TEEN CERT teams help provide critical support by giving immediate assistance to victims, providing damage assessment information, and organizing other volunteer at a disaster site.  Teen Volunteer trained in CERT also offers a potential workforce for performing duties such as shelter support, crowd control, and evacuation.  The role of a TEEN CERT volunteer is to help others until trained emergency personnel arrive.

LMCHS TEEN CERT training took about 250 hours to complete this spring and provided critical skills in emergency preparedness and response.  Students learned how to:

• Identify and anticipate hazards 

• Reduce fire hazards in the home and workplace 

• Extinguish small fires 

• Assist emergency responders 

• Conduct light search and rescue 

• Set up medical treatment areas 

• Apply basic medical techniques 

• Help reduce survivor stress 

• Certified in CPR and AED protocols

The following ‘experts’ from the community assisted Sgt. Smiedendorf in presenting the above material.  We are grateful for their assistance. 

Captain Bradely                           Berrien County Sheriff’s Department
Captain Phillipo and Crew B      St. Joseph Fire Department
Captain Moore and Crew A       St. Joseph Fire Department
Agent Al DiBrito                           FBI
Andrew Cowan                            St. Joseph Police Department/Red Cross
Linda Winholdt                            Volunteer at Red Cross
Sherry Griggs                              Dowagiac HS CERT Advisor                            

LMCHS TEEN CERT members are: 

Senior-  Eric Olszewski
Juniors-  Emily Eversole  Bailey Hermann  Brett Lewis  Miriah Luft Sam Monte
Sophomores-  Sarah Copi  Rachael Kuehn  Casey Smart
Freshmen-  Bryce Almus  Nick Siedenstrang
Advisor-  Miss Schmid