Earthquakes, wildfires, eruptions, and water leaks-- disasters both great and small befall Alaska cultural organizations. Through the Preparing Alaska's Cultural Organizations for Emergencies (PACO) program, participating staff at collecting institutions across Alaska accessed training and coaching resources that hopefully served to enhance our collective disaster preparedness and resiliency.
From 2021-2022, the State Library Archives and Museum led a comprehensive emergency training program for three cohorts of 44 participants. The training program included the following:
Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, participation in the PACO program was free of charge for staff and/or key volunteers at cultural organizations. This included travel to the workshops. It's been the decision of the State Museum that the modules for the course are of such excellent, methodical enrichment that we've dropped the password protection for these modules, and anyone may now access them.
The PACO program tapped into nationally-recognized emergency training programs like Finding Common Ground, and connected with instructors and coaches experienced in disaster planning and response, and brought together a wide variety of collecting institutions and agencies so that together we could build the capacity of Alaska's cultural organizations to be prepared for and respond to emergencies. As the PACO Project becomes more distant in time, we are still striving for interconnectedness among heritage collecting institutions in Alaska and Emergency Management personnel, managers, and collaborators. To this end, several of the most integral agencies have banded together to create the Alaska Heritage Emergency Network, a group interested in preparedness and supportive communication regarding preserving Alaska's cultural organizations -- especially collecting institutions -- as sea storms, floods, and disasters continue as a part of life. To learn more about the Alaska Heritage Emergency Network, please visit https://list.state.ak.us/mailman/listinfo/ahen.
Participants enrolled in one of the following online courses:
Participants also attended one of the following in-person fire and object triage workshops:
*Participants were encouraged to enroll in the workshop closest to their home community regardless of their cohort.
The Preparing Alaska's Cultural Organizations for Emergencies Program has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
