This year, the theme to National Preparedness Month (September) is “Be Disaster Aware, Take Action to Prepare.” In support of this theme, the Ready Campaign will highlight specific actions individuals and groups can take to prepare for an emergency. These include the four building blocks of emergency preparedness – being informed, making a plan, building a kit, and getting involved.
National Preparedness Month provides an important opportunity to raise public awareness about the importance of national resiliency by engaging individuals and groups through a wide variety of strategic partnerships and collaboration. Each week in September, the campaign will focus on a different area of preparedness.
National Preparedness Month will culminate on September 30th with a national day of action, a National PrepareAthon! Day, as part of a nationwide grassroots campaign called America’s PrepareAthon! through which individuals, organizations and communities take simple, specific actions to increase their preparedness for a potential disaster. While this campaign promotes preparedness as ongoing throughout the year, twice a year on national days of action, the America’s PrepareAthon! campaign encourages individuals, organizations, and communities across the country to focus efforts and take part in preparedness activities, such as hazard-specific drills, group discussions, and exercises focusing on the importance of taking action to be prepared for emergencies.
America’s PrepareAthon! will help build a more resilient Nation by increasing the number of individuals and groups who understand what kind of disasters could impact their community, provide information on what they can do to be safe and mitigate damage, and encourage them to take action to increase their preparedness, and participate in community resilience planning.
FEMA hopes that you, your organization, or your community will participate in preparedness activities on or around the September 30 National PrepareAthon! Day, and help increase preparedness for yourself, your organization, or for your community. Practicing what to do in advance of a disaster makes you better prepared to handle any emergency you may encounter.
Once you, your organization, or your community have chosen your activities, please register your participation at www.ready.gov/prepare so you can be counted in the national momentum. With your help, we can collectively move individuals, organizations, and communities to act and become more prepared by participating in America’s PrepareAthon!
To learn more about how you can play a role in your community’s preparedness, visit
www.ready.gov/prepare for fact sheets, guidance, creative materials and an events calendar to help plan your PrepareAthon! activities.
If you have any questions, please contact FEMA’s Intergovernmental Affairs Division at (202) 646-3444 or at
FEMA-IGA@fema.dhs.gov.