The Township of Montclair is looking for residents who are interested in volunteering to help protect the health of our community; these residents will become part of the Greater Montclair Public Health Reserve Corps (GMPHRC).

The Public Health Reserve Corps or PHRC unit is  community-based and functions as a way to locally organize and utilize volunteers who want to donate their time and expertise to respond to public health emergencies. PHRC volunteers supplement existing emergency and public health resources. We recognize that in the event of a public health emergency, people are our most valuable resource. While our plans and infrastructure are in place for an emergency, trained volunteers will be needed to supplement the existing public health workforce. Therefore, The Nutley Health Department is joining federal and state efforts to recruit and train volunteers from our surrounding communities.

The PHRC was founded after President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address, in which he asked all Americans to volunteer in support of their country. It is a specialized component of Citizen Corps, a national network of volunteers dedicated to ensuring hometown security. Citizen Corps, along with AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and the Peace Corps are part of the President's USA Freedom Corps, which promotes volunteerism and service nationwide.

We are actively seeking a pool of volunteers to help staff a clinic also know as a Point of Distribution (POD) site in the event of such and  emergency. These POD’s are temporary clinics that would dispense medications in large numbers to residents. During a public health emergency, volunteers will be asked to perform duties in accordance with their interests, training, and experience.  Such duties might include direct patient care, administrative duties, clerical or reception duties and translation. These are just some of the many roles for volunteers. Depending upon the situation at hand, we may ask volunteers to assist us in our offices with tasks such as answering phones.

For more information please contact Erica Abbruzzese, Health Educator at 973-509-4969 or online at www.medicalreservecorps.gov.