Amid the fun and frolic of this year’s Black Patch Festival, visitors will find an area of activity with a more practical bent.

From 9 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6, the Caldwell County American Red Cross Chapter will host a preparedness fair on the Princeton City Hall lawn and the adjacent section of East Main Street.

The fair, the chapters’ kickoff activity, will be the first of several Red Cross-sponsored activities in September, National Preparedness Month, said chapter director Raymond Giannini.

Most all of the community’s first responders and preparedness agencies have been invited to set up booths, exhibits and demonstrations.

Red Cross officials also hope to sign up volunteers interested in any of the facets of the chapter’s mission.

Demonstrations have been scheduled throughout the day, including:

• CPR and first aid, for both humans and animals. The animal demonstrations, along with a petting zoo, are being offered in collaboration with Caldwell County Animal Rescue, said Giannini.

• Local Boy Scouts will be assisting with several events. The Scouts will be setting up tents and gear and demonstrating Dutch oven cooking over open fire, helpful in the event of a disaster that knocks out electric power.

• Princeton Fire and Rescue units and the HAZMAT-2 team will set up demonstrations with the team’s decontamination tent.

• A fire safety house will offer children a chance to go inside and learn how to safely exit during a disaster, like a fire or earthquake.

• A Wal-Mart safety truck will also be on hand with safety information for children.

Many emergency vehicles will be on display, including a vintage fire engine and vintage ambulance, Giannini noted.

A Red Cross emergency response vehicle (ERV), used recently at national disasters, may also be on display, he said.

The vehicle, and several Red Cross volunteers, have been deployed to the Gulf Coast in advance of Tropical Storm Gustav.

“If it doesn’t hit hard, they’ll be back,” he said.

Other agencies invited to attend include: the Pennyrile Citizens Corps and its Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Disaster Animal Response Team (DART), the Mid-West Kentucky Red Cross, Public Health/Medical Reserve Corps and law enforcement.

Information will also be available on all types of community, personal, family and pet safety and disaster preparedness, Giannini said.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to register and receive door prizes and giveaways throughout the day.

Some of the items include preparedness kits, first aid kits, flashlights, smoke/fire detectors, firearm safety locks and NOAA weather radios.

At noon, the preparedness fair will stop for a prayer service and moment of silence for first responders and the community.

The service will be led by Barry Hix, Caldwell County EMS chaplain, and the Rev. David Oaks, pastor of Ogden Memorial United Methodist Church.

The county Red Cross chapter will also offer sign-ups for volunteers interested in trainings, and those interested in donating or sponsoring a training.

Giannini issued a special call to local churches to make shelter agreements with the Red Cross and volunteers willing to go through a nine-to-11-hour national disaster preparedness training to operate those shelters, if necessary.

“We haven’t opened many shelters up in the past 20 to 30 years, and we don’t want to open a shelter up, but we need to be ready and prepared in case we have to.

“If we could have a few people from each church go to emergency training, they could operate a shelter,” he said.

The goal, he said, is to develop a trained local response team capable of handling disasters in Caldwell and neighboring counties.

“A lot of people have different interests in volunteering and becoming involved,” he said. “There’s just a lot of areas that we can definitely use volunteers.”

Donations will be accepted for Red Cross disaster relief efforts and Red Cross trainings for Caldwell County.

Donations given locally stay local.