Ky. Baptist Disaster Relief Blue Hats have weekend of celebration, training

Aug 19, 2023

Managing Editor

KYDR Director Ron Crow greets the Blue Hats of the Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief on Friday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) – Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief celebrated its Blue Hats – the leadership core of the volunteers – with a big weekend at the Baptist Building.

The Blue Hats are men and women who have been an experienced volunteers with good leadership skills, people skills and spiritually strong. They are responsible for the assembled teams. The Blue Hats must be capable of, well, wearing a lot of hats.

A roundtable discussion at the Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief Blue Hats meeting last weekend.

“We couldn’t function without them,” said Ron Crow, the director of the Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief.

About 70 of the Blue Hats came together for two days of fellowship, training and learning. It’s an annual event that brings leadership personnel of the KYDR together and has become a reunion of sorts, Crow said.

“They love coming together and spending time together,” Crow said.

They are men and women who make the Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief teams to be among the best in the country. As leaders, they know how to get the best of their volunteer teams in sometimes difficult situations. The volunteers working alongside them are organized into a well-oiled machine whether it is working with chainsaws or putting together meals for hundreds, or a number of other ministries.

Crow said they have Blue Hats for every area of ministry that the Disaster Relief offers, including working shower units, childcare or chaplain. He said they are constantly looking for others to become Blue Hats after gaining valuable deployment experience and meeting the necessary leadership criteria.

Jake Hancock, a Baptist Campus Minster at Eastern Kentucky University, spoke to the Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief Blue Hats about Generation Z.

“The Blue Hats are responsible for the individual teams,” he said. “Deployment experience and good people skills and leadership skills are what we watch for. We don’t look for a set length of time because a lot of times people bring experience to the table. You have to consider, too, the different ministry areas we have. Each one has its own Blue Hat. A feeding person might not be able to be a chainsaw (Blue Hat) for example.”

Many of the Blue Hats are training in multiple ministries, Crow said.

Volunteers are trained in each area of ministry that Disaster Relief offers. For example, nobody walks onto the chainsaw team without going through the chainsaw training that is offered throughout the state about four times a year. Two more training sessions will take place this year, the first on Sept. 9 in Hodgenville and then on Oct. 14 in Somerset.

There is also training for new Blue Hats in the spring and fall to “introduce them to their role,” Crow said. Some of their duties also include filing reports on what happened during a response. As leaders, they carry a much heavier burden than the other volunteer workers. The annual appreciation weekend is another way to get them more information about their duties, he said, including new equipment, safety measures and changes in policy.

“We come together and do some additional training and inform them of updates or changes being made,” Crow said of last weekend’s meeting.

Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief Blue Hats shared a meal and door prizes on Friday night before BCM Jake Hancock (black shirt) spoke to them about Generation Z.

Jake Hancock, the Baptist Campus Minister in Richmond, spoke to the assembled group on Friday night about Generation Z. Disaster Relief leadership is always looking to expand to younger volunteers, Crow said. “It was important for him to share that as we are wanting younger people (to serve).”

Most of the Disaster Relief volunteers are of retirement age and additional youth would make a difference, Crow said. He said KYDR added about 15 new Blue Hats last year. One of the new Blue Hats had her first assignment with a chainsaw team in Oklahoma, he said.

Additional training took place on Saturday including safety issues and a roundtable discussion where they hashed out potential problems and had questions answered. They also shared stories about responses and “celebrated what God had done,” Crow said.

Managing Editor

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