About
In short, Pick Up A Piece is an informal, non-centralized, and non-political organization formed to promote personal preparedness and standardize a level of readiness among members.
After seeing people being pulled apart by a society and world that revels in division, the primary founder & co-owner (Bunker John) decided to try and combat that with this loose organization. Many individuals are looking for ways to better prepare themselves and their families. But there are so many voices, it's easy to get lost in them.
This site serves as an informational hub to gather individuals together in becoming more prepared. The first line of defense against a crisis, big or small, is an individual, a family, and a community. Pick Up A Piece serves as a uniting factor in preparing and responding to a crisis, a uniting factor in which political view, race, religion, or other factors are not barriers. It aims to point them in the right direction, to offer both guides for preparing for a crisis as well as direct links to products that are well-researched and widely relied on.
Many people appreciate the idea of belonging to something. That urge to belong drives many to areas of good influence, but also bad. Since many individuals gravitate towards belonging to something, why not have that be a force for good? Perhaps, in time, you'll see individuals with the organization's logo helping out after a disaster, or even simply in your day-to-day life. As described on the “Become a Mitigation Agent” page, it's similar to a Boy Scout oath or pledge. It's open to all who are ready and willing to help. You are personally ascribing to the idea that you will help to the best of your ability irrespective of race, income, religion, or political view. We're all the same when disasters hit. The goal is to unite us in that universal status.
This should be made clear:
This is not a militia.
No illegal activities will be condoned.
Advice or recommendations on this site are not meant to supersede or replace official guidance before, during, and after a disaster, and the Organization should be one of many sources of information
The advice on this site is to guide individuals to operate under their local laws, including not interfering with official emergency responders or other organizations. Should emergency services be unavailable, this site and organization aims to have prepared members able and willing to individually respond to the best of their trained ability.
The quote that kick-started this venture is as follows, from Tom Clancy's “The Division.” The “agent” are simply a mostly tongue-in-cheek nod to this origin.
"It's hard to watch something you love destroy itself, to see it fall apart. Disaster always feels so distant, detached, someone else's struggle in some far away place. It's not until it's in our city, at our doors, do we realize just how fragile we are, all of us, all of this. And when it hit, when it came down, it came down hard. And we fell. We buried ourselves in anger, fear and the instinct to survive. And the real truth is no one watched. No one saw or wanted to see.
Tragedy is invisible. People turn away from it, they run from it if they can. And it's hard knowing you belong here. That your purpose lies amongst all this pain. But someone's gotta be there. To pick it up, to push back, to put the first piece back together.
To put us all back together."
- Tom Clancy's The Division
This is Pick Up A Piece. Putting the world back together when it all falls apart.
Who is Bunker John?
Bunker John is the primary founder and co-owner of Pick Up A Piece. They currently direct the Organization's team, and lead the formation of news posts and threat ratings. Other members include a subject matter expert/consultant, and a fantastic dev team.
(Personal Note from Bunker John)
On a more personal level, who is Bunker John? Well, it's me! I'm the main founder of Pick Up A Piece, and overall "prepper." That's it in a nutshell! Bunker John is a pseudonym I've used online for years as I try my best to guide people towards self-reliance on various platforms.
While I'm the primary founder and head of Pick Up A Piece, I'm certainly not the sole member of the team! For example, the amazing web developers lead and manage the overall operation of the site, and the consulting option necessitates additional members who help behind the scenes to ensure the best information possible.
In addition to my professional career in the subject (Emergency Planner/Consultant), I have a Masters in Emergency Management & Disaster Preparedness, and have been involved in self-reliance/prepping for 15+ years. I’ve done thousands of hours of research for the various preparedness steps, products, and ways of thinking I now try to pass along. This includes overseeing the moderator team on r/preppers- where we're at more than half a million members and growing.
Where many people remember me from is when I covered the COVID-19 Pandemic for 2 years with a regular, non-political newsletter on Imgur- and I've carried that now over to this site!
While I'd be honored if you trusted both the how-to prepare guides, along with my other recommendations such as the news posts and threat levels, I hope you have a bit of skepticism. That's healthy! I'm just one of many individuals on the internet giving their advice, and there are certainly many.
While the suggested/linked products on the “Recommended Products” page are the result of many hours of research and quite a bit of waffling back and forth for my own supply list, the items are ultimately for you, and I hope everyone explores various options, as nobody's self-reliance journey is 100% the same. I simply aim to offer a general guide, both recommending products I personally trust, and also providing a baseline if you choose to research alternatives.
I do want to clarify something in regards to the Products page. I do not offer any products I, myself would not use, own, or recommend for myself or family and friends. If I am ever paid to promote a singular product/brand in a post, I will not conceal that in the slightest. Products in the “Store” section of the site are ones I feel comfortable using myself- nothing less.
In closing, I hope this site and organization provides some direction during your preparedness journey. The news page and threat level ratings mimic the “Bunker John Uh-Oh scale” that I used during the COVID Pandemic to evaluate the current crisis levels- and a lot of people enjoyed the clear direction it offered. I hope that these new posts and threat level ratings, can provide a bit of direction if nothing else- but I would encourage you to do your own research as well. My goal is to provide a non-political threat analysis that can aid you in your own personal preparedness.
So, thank you for reading, and welcome to Pick Up A Piece, where we're all are united in one goal; when the world falls apart, someone will be there to put it back together.
-Bunker John