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• Background With increased focus on building a strong emergency response force in our society, it is important that we utilize the strength of our existing infrastructure. Strengthening community emergency response capacity is growing increasingly important as the potential for threat increases and existing emergency response resources become stretched. The CDC reports that emergency response capacity varies from community to community depending on the community's investment to public health infrastructure. (CDC, 2003) Mobilizing our communities and building emergency response capacity through education programs is one method of advancing the investment in emergency preparedness. The city of Falcon Heights, Minnesota (pop. 5672) is a community with a history of investment to improving the public health infrastructure. In the early 1990's, Falcon Heights became the first city in • Minnesota to have a Neighborhood Watch volunteer on every city block. This commitment to ensuring safe and connected neighborhoods continued through the 1990's with intergenerational dialogues about methods to foster neighborhood connectivity and enhance quality of life for residents. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the city council initiated an intergenerational dialogue on homeland security and through this, the Neighborhood Security Task Force was developed. The task force created emergency preparedness materials for block leaders and eventually gave rise to the Neighborhood Commission. The community manual they created on an "intergenerational organizing model" has been shared with over 70 Minnesota cities and counties, as well as with Florida, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. (Powell, 2003) The Neighborhood Commission's primary responsibilities are to serve as the neighborhoods' representative to the city, to make recommendations to the City Council concerning emergency preparedness, and to recruit Neighborhood Liaisons. Neighborhood Liaisons are representatives for each neighborhood and can take on a number of roles, such as Social Organizer, Information, Communications, Crime Prevention, Buddy Check, or First Aid/Medical Liaison. These roles often over-lap and can be sub-divided to include • residents of all ages. This kind of intergenerational participation in the community is a concept Falcon Heights 3J