We are doing massage at St. Paul's Chapel (right at Ground Zero), the landfill site on Staten Island, fire stations though out the five Burroughs, and working with Safe Horizon, the country's largest family assistance program in the country. 

Safe Horizons was the only group making sure that families, individuals, and survivors received money so that they could go on with their lives. The counselors have been working twelve hour days distributing the money.

I have testimonials from the NYPD, FDNY, The Mayor's office of Emergency Management and Safe Horizon. They are so appreciative, we received "Thank You's", hugs, big hearty hand shakes and "come back again" all the time. Of course, we thank them for the job they are doing.

We have committed to deploying to New York until May. We are going for one week a month. We stayed two weeks over Christmas and New Years. Our next deployment is February tenth through the seventeenth.

How has the presence of professional Aromatherapists affected your efforts?
The Staten Island landfill and around Ground Zero are areas of concern for workers because of all the dust, debris, asbestos and other toxic elements in the air.

While working at the land fill, we had diffusers going with different respiratory blends sent to use from Aromatherapists and companies world wide. When the workers saw what the blends could do for them, we started seeing lines form at the Aromatherapy table we had set up. 

  Aromatherapy in Emergency Response is pretty new. The first time I remember we used Essential Oils, was at Oklahoma City. We now include Aromatherapy in our training. 

How do you feel that Essential Oils have enhanced or detracted from each treatment? Would you welcome assistance from Aromatherapists in any future disasters?
We are lucky in having one of the top Aromatherapists in the world working with us, Sylla Sheppard-Hanger. 

Sylla has organized the United Aromatherapy Effort (www.unitedaromatherapy.org), to gather products that we dispense at all our stops. I have been a tutor with her Atlantic Institute of Aromatherapy for nine years and about one half of the team has had training in Aromatherapy.

The use of AT has been a perfect combination. With the psychological effects of the Oils and the stress reducing massage, the people that we work with receive dual effects.
We welcome Aromatherapists, it does help to have massage experience, but that's not a deciding factor.

How do you obtain funding?
Our team members do fundraisers. We charge $1.00 a minute for chair massage and the proceeds go to CERMT to help pay for expenses. The Aromatherapy community has just opened their hearts and sent monetary and product donations.

What have you not been able to do because of the lack of resources? 
We would like to be able to provide more AT products to the people we work on.

Where can one send donations?       

 Please make checks out to 'CERMT' and send them to:
CERMT
191 Merrimon Ave.                                 Asheville, NC 28801