Twenty-six Aquinas students recently completed Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training, an 8-week course designed to teach first responder basic disaster survival and rescue skills to community members.

The CERT program was developed and implemented by the City of Los Angeles Fire Department in 1985 to improve the ability of citizens to survive until first responders or other assistance could arrive in the event of a disaster.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) expanded the CERT format to make it applicable to all hazards and created the Citizens Corps program in 2003 in an effort to harness the power of every individual through education, training and volunteer service to make communities safer, stronger and better prepared to respond to the threats of terrorism, crime, public health issues and disasters of all kinds. CERT was selected as one of the primary programs offered to the American public to meet this challenge.

The program has been highly successful in the Rochester area under the direction of the Rochester Fire Department (RFD). The department was instrumental in rewriting the course curriculum, which is now taught nationwide.

Aquinas was the first high school in the state to participate in CERT training, with fourteen AQ students completing the eight-week course in 2005. To date, 100 students have been through the training. "The students have been extremely dedicated to this program from the start. They learn so much in a short period of time," said Anne Sammler, AQ CERT coordinator.