WESTFORD — Being ready to help residents during large emergency events and disasters takes planning, preparation, coordination—and often trained volunteers from the Upper Merrimack Valley Medical Reserve Corps.
In Westford and six surrounding towns, this group of about 600 active volunteers has stepped up many a time, including during the 2008 ice storm in Westford and the 2018 series of gas fires and explosions in Andover, Mass.
These volunteers, both medical and non-medical, regularly staff yearly flu clinics run by the Westford Health Department, blood pressure checks at a senior center in Chelmsford and the “Love All, Serve All” Foundation event in Lowell. They also raise awareness of health issues in unique ways. For a few years in Westford, they have been creating and distributing pet-friendly ice melt with tips for preventing slips and falls. Slips and falls can result in broken hips, a leading cause of medical decline in the elderly population.
“I like being around healers. And we are here to heal,” said Nancy Burns, an EMT who is the medical reserve coordinator for the Upper Merrimack Valley Medical Reserve Corps.
Organizing Volunteers Post 9/11
The Upper Merrimack Valley Medical Reserve Corps is one of many such units across the United States created after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
In the days following the tragedy, medical professionals and others came to the disaster scene of the Twin Towers in New York City wanting to help. But there was no way to know what skills they had, who they were or provide organization, Burns said.
One of the lessons of 9/11 was that training volunteers in advance is a better way to prepare and respond to these events, she said.
This area’s medical reserve corps serves a population of more than 250,000 residents in seven towns: Billerica, Chelmsford, Dracut, Lowell, Tewksbury, Tyngsboro and Westford.
(In a photo at the top of this article, two medical members of the medical reserve corps use a bag-valve mask and chest compressions to renew their advanced-level CPR certification. Photo submitted by the Upper Merrimack Valley Medical Reserve Corps).
The Town of Westford’s Board of Health is the lead agency for the area’s medical reserve corps, also referred to as the “MRC.”
Rae Dick, health director of the Westford Health Department, serves as director of the corps where she oversees grants and coordinates with Burns on projects.
“In all of our communities, we couldn’t put on any immunization clinics without the MRC,” Dick said.
Dick explained that staffing emergency shelters is also only possible because of the MRC. “The help of these volunteers is absolutely invaluable. The money that is saved by communities through the assistance of these volunteers is tremendous,” she said.
Medical reserve corps projects and training are supported primarily through federal emergency preparedness funding. The group also receives a grant from the National Association of County and City Health Officials, Burns said.
In November, Westford Health Department officials and Burns met for a tabletop exercise to plan for disasters and they had a CPR class scheduled to instruct the town’s water treatment plant employees.
Volunteer-powered support
The corps is comprised of about 165 Westford residents, while other volunteers hail from as far away as Brockton, Mass. Volunteers seek out the group because it is so active, Burns said.
Westford resident Diana Walker-Moyer, DNP, a registered nurse and retired family nurse practitioner, began volunteering with the medical reserve corps in 2004. She was one of the group’s original volunteers when it was led by Sandy Collins, who had been Westford’s health director, prior to her retirement from that post.
Walker-Moyer said her volunteer work with the corps has given her the opportunity to use her medical skills in situations that differed from the medical practice where she worked. She has helped people in disaster shelters and performed medical sweeps to ensure runner safety on the streets at the Boston Marathon. (The marathon is not a medical reserve corps volunteer event, but she wears her local shirt to promote the group, she said.)
And in May 2025, Walker-Moyer attended a disaster relief exercise where a mock field hospital was set up in the woods in Andover.
Nurses bring a caring approach that instills trust in patients and opens the door for providing information that can be helpful and reassuring, Walker-Moyer said. “Sometimes, it’s just listening to people,” she said. At a blood pressure clinic, she talked to patients about knitting and the Patriots football team to help them feel more at ease.
At an emergency shelter, the approach is the same, she explained, “Let them get it out, and then, one by one, address the issues the best you can.”
John Mulloy of Billerica has volunteered with the medical reserve corps for more than 20 years. Prior to his retirement, he was a campus police officer at Northeastern University in Boston where the department ran its own basic life support ambulance, so it could respond more quickly to students’ medical needs, he said.
As a volunteer, Mulloy serves as an EMT at flu clinics, the “Love All, Serve All” medical screening event in Lowell and he teaches in-person CPR and first aid courses.
“I like doing good things for the population,” Mulloy said. The corps provides training opportunities, too, he said, adding the volunteers are “good people to hang with.”
To find out more about volunteering or donating to the medical reserve corps, visit its website.
