Mississippi State University’s Community Emergency Response Team will hold a “Preparathon” Saturday featuring an Emergency Preparedness Fair, half marathon, 5K and family fun run races.
Ryan Akers, assistant extension professor at the school of human sciences at MSU, said the Preparathon includes many different events in addition to the three races. 
“The Preparathon is an umbrella term used for a lot of different events that are taking place,” Akers said. 
Akers said all profits from the Preparathon goes to three local emergency response agencies. “The registration fees go back to the Oktibbeha County Fire Department, the Oktibbeha/Starkville Emergency Response Volunteer Service (OSERVS) and the Salvation  Army Disaster Response Services,” Akers said.  
Akers said there will also be an emergency preparedness fair to promote awareness preparing for an emergency. 
“While the family fun run is going on, we will also have a comprehensive Emergency Preparedness Fair; we wanted to raise money for local agencies, but we wanted to mainly promote individual and family and community preparedness,” Akers said. 
According to Akers, there will be 34 departments attending the event. 
“We’ve got 34 state local and national agencies that have committed to come to this event and spread their preparedness message,” Akers said. 
Akers also said a national organization called “Save the Children” will attend to talk to families about how to help their kids prepare for an emergency. 
“We also have a national agency called Save the Children coming and their message is going to be designed to talk to families about children in an event of an emergency,” she said. 
Akers said there will also be a “hospital” that parents can walk through and get information on preparing for a disaster and emergencies. 
“We will have a mobile hospital that they’re bringing in that parents can visit and learn more about emergency preparedness,” Akers said. “There will also be an event similar to the ‘Touch a Truck’ event where kids can actually look at and touch emergency trucks.  
Some people may be familiar with ‘Touch a Truck’ where a lot of communities are bring in monster trucks and let the kids play on them and kids love it; we’re doing the same thing except we have emergency response vehicles.”