Report From Roosevelt Island Residents Association President Ellen Polivy - Community Emergency Response Team Training (CERT), Blood Drive And Fun Filled Roosevelt Island

You Tube Video Of NYC Cert Training

Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) President Ellen Polivy sends the following Report To The Community:

Hope you had a happy Roosevelt Island Day and a Happy Fathers Day. Once a year Roosevelt Islanders come out to celebrate what is special about our Island, our green spaces, our unique community involvement and our willingness to pitch in and help make our Island a better place. I’ve always found the day exciting and fun. Everyone is out and about on the Island doing something.

Roosevelt Island Day is a big block party. Children come out for the rides and to play and see their friends. Adults come out to either volunteer to help with the party, plant flowers or simply to hang out and be around the energy and their neighbors. Volunteers get their tee shirts and bound off to do various helpful activities like planting, monitoring the rides and cleaning up. Elected officials come by to meet and greet and many Island organizations have information tables.

Last Saturday, as usual RIRA sponsored the volunteer breakfast. RIRA members handed out hundreds of bagels and rolls, 4 vats of coffee and tea, coffee and tea and 12 Cartons worth of orange juice till they ran out at around noon. Thanks to Trellis for giving us two for one food and free coffee and tea and thanks to Starbucks for the free coffee. And a big thank you to all the RIRA members who spent the day staffing the table and greeting the the community.

Once again RIRA sponsored our blood drive. RIRA has been signing people up for the last three weeks to donate. We had over 100 people signed up to donate. The final count was close to 50 pints of blood. Thanks Jeff Prekopa for organizing this and to all the RIRA members who sat at the table and got the sign ups.

Thank you to Doryne Isley and Urban America who organizes this each year. Thanks also to the other sponsors for bringing the Island together for community spirit building. The Youth Center, a big help in lots of community events sponsors this activity as well. Thanks to RIOC for their sponsorship and support. The buildings also donate and the artists spend their time drawing our portraits.The community comes out to plant, clean up and help run the day.

The Roosevelt Island CERT is signing people up for the next class of 10 week free intensive training to assist first responders in emergencies. The class starts in September. The information in this class is essential for everyone. The class teaches everything from fire safety and use of fire extinguishers, first aide, triage, rescue, subway escapes to directing traffic. You never know when you might be called upon to stand in the middle of the street and gesticulate to drivers. Besides being available in emergencies and helping their communities prepare for emergencies, CERT members get called to do interesting activities. For instance, you could volunteer to be a “victim” in FDNY training scenarios. Community Emergency Response Team members are respected in the City and CERT member volunteers get deployed in emergencies. This is an impressive resume builder a lot of fun and a huge help to the community. Anyone 18 and over can be in the training class. The signup for the CERT class is now at 40 folks. Our CERT Chief will try to use the large interest to get a class started on Roosevelt Island rather than having all 40 folks go to the Citywide class.Anyone else who still wants to sign up can contact Howard Polivy, CERT Chief at HLpolivy@gmail.com

It was a beautiful Roosevelt Island Day. Thanks to all who helped make it so vibrant. We got this email from Sherie Helstien, the RIRA Secretary from last term. " I am writing to tell you what a terrific job you all did yesterday! Lynne (Shinozaki and committee), you got out the Bagels, Coffee, Juice, and two fundraising raffles! Jeff (Prekopa, Communications Committee Co-Chair and Chair of the Blood Drive), you got Roosevelt Islanders’ Blooood flowing! Ellen(Polivy, RIRA President) you got CERT training info and training sign-up done! Erin (Feeley-Nahem, Chair of the Public Safety Committee) you had the table with PSC information and that stand-alone professional looking PSC Newsletter! Whoa! What a wonderful RIRA presence on the Island!"