The Citizen Corp program was established by the second President Bush as a means to recruit volunteers to serve in case of emergency and to prepare the citizen population for emergencies. Delaware County has implemented one of the more robust Citizen Corp programs in the country since then. Typical trainings cover subjects like first aid, emergency preparedness, shelter logistics and so on. In the last year DelCo’s Citizen Corp has helped with food pantries, Covid testing, Covid vaccinations, answering help lines and recently helping staff hospital emergency rooms (the Medical Reserve Corp (MRC) is another branch of the Citizen Corp).

Next week will be a year since my first deployment with the Delaware County Citizen’s Corp. As I write this, I just got home from a shift at the Chester City vaccination clinic, where we vaccinated another couple dozen people of all ages. I first signed up in Dec. of 2020 to help with vaccinations and at the end of January I went out to help at the Yeadon vaccine clinic. According to the system DelCo’s Citizen Corp now uses to manage volunteers, I’ve done about 100 hours since the system was implemented last March. Although a small part of that is training, the bulk has been participating in ARES (the Amateur Radio Emergency Service) and the county’s vaccination clinics in Springfield, Aston, Yeadon and Chester.

Anyone can join the Citizen Corp up at the link above and run through the initial training. I run into volunteers from Wallingford and Swarthmore all the time. The Citizen Corp is all volunteer, you sign up for whatever shifts and jobs you’re available for. And if you’re still looking for vaccination shots, appointments are available on the county’s website.