When you plan your kit, how many people do you include?

1. At work (extra first kit items, flashlights, masks, etc.)
2. In your car ( here kid, take a blanket.)
3. At home? ( your family, guests, neighbors?)

TRO

My individual kit is just that... for me. The family kit is just that, for the family. Anything extra is primarily for backup/barter. While I'm not totally heartless (if I've been able to forage extra food, I'll share with an orphan/unprepared, "feel free to sit by the fire"), charity starts at home. Sorry that it's a cruel world, I don't make the rules, but I do play to win.

Troy

At work, I just have my individual kit supplies. One of everything.

In the car, it's a bit bigger but not enough to accommodate more than the three of us.

At home, I have His and Hers BOBs with some dup. supplies for our toddler. Aside from BOBs, our home kit could probably sustain another couple for a time but not too many more than that.

Theres an old folk story about a lost british soldier in Revolutionary New England ( Some say he was irish.) Our protagonist picks up a rock and puts it in his billy and knocks at a farmhouse. He explains hes making stone soup but lacks a potato. Fascinated, the mistress gives him a spud. He repeats this at successive homesteads collecting carrots, onion, some salt, a bit of meat and even a bottle of ale and bread to go with it. My kits? close to the others, with the addition of some good stories to put other people at ease and an ear to hear theirs <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

My personal kit that I take everywhere is just for me, though I have a couple of redundant items in case I need to share (like a dust mask). But I can only stretch it for two people.

I'm working on another kit that's made for two, and that can be divided up for carry by two people. I'm very selective on extras because my husband and I (I got married recently) can make do by sharing. That kit we could probably stretch for three people.

The thing is, I do not have the financial means to plan for more than myself and my husband, nor do I find that such a good idea. My family back east has to prepare for themselves now, since I am no longer there to do it for them. As for other people, I feel the same way. My generosity can only go so far.

And Chris, the Stone Soup story is one of my favorites, though I believe it dates back further than the Revolutionary War. If anyone can recall Jim Henson's "The Storyteller" T.V. series from the '90s, it was retold there, and I think originates from the French. It's a classic.

Once I read Joseph Campbell in university my profs threw up their academic hands. I had jewish patriarchs talking to white buffaloes, the artisans of Lascaux making suggestions for the Sistine Chapel and Baron Munchausen slipping through Area 51. It's the lessons and examples that are important. Trying to care for others at your own survival detriment is like the lady who was feeding so many pidgeons she wound up in hospital from malnutrition. I have a squirrel with paralysed rear legs outside my apt. He and my cat think they're brothers. I have to help feed the lousy squirrel or my cat poops in my riding boots. I compensate by yelling ( in squirrel talk) at all the other squirrels <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />You don't neccessarily have to provide dust masks to every victim of a evacuating building. Just have a good flashlight to lead by example <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

yeah ... I noticed, too .... Cats have strong characters .... and know very well how to express their feelings. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />