By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News

The Livingston County Public Health Department is looking for people to join the Volunteer Corps in an attempt to plan ahead for potential emergencies.

The purpose of this group is to have available reserves to rapidly mobilize when needed to strengthen the department’s capabilities during local emergencies.

Health Education and Marketing Director Linda Rhodes gave an example of when the Volunteer Corps was used in the county.

“If you go back to 2009 when we had the H1N1 flu making the rounds and we were trying to vaccinate large numbers of people in a short amount of time. We definitely found we don’t have enough staff to man all the positions we wanted manned, because there’s thing we don’t normally have to do, such as triage people at the front door or get them into categories of groups that can get the vaccine that day. So, volunteers are very helpful at that time,” Rhodes said.

There is training offered for interested participants. For more information or to sign up, visit lchd.us.