How to Request MRC Volunteer Support in Berkshire and Franklin Counties

MRC Volunteers are pre-credentialed and pre-trained to support a variety of needs including disaster response.

When circumstances warrant it, the MRC receives requests for assistance from outside agencies that promote public health or safety. After reading the below guidelines, deployment requests should be made to the Volunteer Coordinator, Christy Lemoine, using this LINK

The criteria to qualify for MRC assistance includes:

1. Request must come from an Emergency Manger, Town Administrator, Board of Health Lead, Event Coordinator – or their designee.  
2. Form must be filled out to include specific details about the need.
3. There must be a point person on site knows about MRC, who expects MRC Volunteers, and agrees they are needed . This person should be able to offer direction an ensure volunteers are welcome and needed. 
4. MRC Volunteers must be covered under the liability insurance of the requesting agency/town. We will ask you to execute an MOU to this effect prior to deployment of volunteers. 
5. MRC Coordinator must be contacted by phone to ensure this request form is received.  Christy Lemoine 413-539-0129 (text is usually best).  
6. Once it’s determined that MRC can help and will deploy volunteers, the person requesting support will be asked to send an email to the ‘point person on site’ if different than requester, while copying the MRC Coordinator, making an introduction, and confirming arrival time and expectations.

What to expect

Once MRC is notified of a situation and receives a formal, detailed, volunteer request form, we will gather any additional information needed and attempt to initiate volunteer notification and/or deployment within hours of request.

Generally, the MRC is used to support emergency responses later in the situation, after the Emergency Managers have completed an initial assessment and identified the immediate services that are required for an effective response. It’s prudent to contact MRC immediately after an event is occurs – or when it becomes clear one is anticipated so that we can begin the process of putting volunteers on stand-by.