This is Ozarks at Large. The Northwest Arkansas Emergency Preparedness Fair is tomorrow in Centerton. Yesterday, Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis spoke with event organizer Matt Lindsay, who is senior pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lindsay says the event combines safety with fun.
Lindsay: When organizations like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints work closely with others throughout the community, great things happen, right? So, we have thousands of individuals that have attended the emergency preparedness fair over the last, call it, 18 years. This is the third year we're covering it in the Centerton area. We covered it in Bentonville before that.
And the spirit behind this is really just people coming to find information about how to keep them safe, secure and prepared for all kinds of emergency types of challenges that may come our way. And this fair has something for everyone.
Travis: Yeah. Tell me about that. What can people expect to experience whenever they go to the fair?
Lindsay: So, like I said, this is the 18th year that we've held this emergency preparedness fair. We have over 50 vendors that are going to be joining us this year. And it's a wide range of topics and information that people can come and just learn, right? They can learn at every level of readiness is really the goal. And whether you're somebody that's just starting or somebody that has been preparing for years, there's something for everyone. There's some sort of help that you can walk away with.
We also have classes inside of our building. So think of this as sit-down classes, opportunities to learn more about emotional resilience through an emergency situation, emergency response. We even have an active shooter training that will be taking part this year in. And what we want to do is we just want to give people practical knowledge of emergency preparedness and to take that home with them and put it into action, right?
And I think, as you probably are aware, but one common misunderstanding is that you don't have to have all the knowledge at once. You don't have to have everything. You don't have to know everything all at one time, right? Preparedness is just really about taking the next step. And that's what the fair is designed to do. It's to help people know kind of that first step to take.
And so everyone is welcome. This is a free event for everybody to come and take part in. There's complimentary breakfast and lunch. We'll be flipping some pancakes and cooking up some hot dogs for people that want to attend. It's a family-friendly activity. We got games for kids. You can come see the Flight for Life helicopter land at like 10:30 in the morning. You can donate blood. We hope to see everybody there. It's a wonderful activity, and we love seeing the community come out.
Travis: Matt, tell me about something that you have learned maybe in years past at this fair.
Lindsay: Well, I tell you, I've learned a lot. For me personally, one of the things that we take serious is just general preparedness. Think about, we live in an area where we have a lot of storms, and I think we've all been impacted or know somebody that was impacted by the storms of 2024 over Memorial Weekend.
And so for my family, that was a wake-up call. That was a kind of a line-in-the-sand moment for us where we realized that we got to do a little bit more to prepare for these emergency situations, whether it's downed trees on your house, whether it's losing power, whether it's just having food prep supplies in the home or just basic needs. That was something that we really took to heart, and we really put a plan in action to make sure that we're better prepared in the future for those types of events.
Travis: So one more time, just give me the when and where and where people can go for more information about this event.
Lindsay: Yeah. So it's this upcoming Saturday. Sept. 26 is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's at our meeting house in Centerton. The address is 950 Seba Road, that's Centerton, Arkansas. And again, everyone's welcome. We welcome everybody to come out, take part. Like I said before, we have over 50 vendors that will be there talking about emergency preparedness. For more information, you can go to the NWA Emergency Preparedness Fair that's on Facebook. We have a Facebook page, and people can get more information there.
But like I said, we're really excited about it. The volunteers, the hundreds of volunteers that have really put this event together, they're pretty passionate about our emergency response. And you'll see that come to life as you come to the emergency preparedness fair to see and to learn and to just take part in this wonderful event that's there for the community.
Travis: All right. Matt Lindsay is senior pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much for your time, and I really appreciate it.
Lindsay: Yeah, Jack, thank you. Really appreciate it.
Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis speaking with Matt Lindsay about tomorrow's Northwest Arkansas Emergency Preparedness Fair.
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