Press
For Immediate Release
Portland, Ore. — A new company is challenging one of preparedness’s oldest assumptions: that surviving disaster is something you do alone.
We’re excited to launch Community Prep: A new kind of preparedness company, one built around the belief that the most important emergency resource isn’t what’s in your garage. It’s who’s in your neighborhood.
While climate-driven disasters, prolonged power outages, wildfires, floods, severe storms, and infrastructure disruptions are becoming more common, most Americans remain underprepared. Not because they don’t care, but because preparedness has become overwhelming. Endless products, conflicting advice, and fear-based marketing have left many people feeling hopeless and in need of an expert.
Community Prep was created to offer a different path.
We don’t believe preparedness should be driven by fear. It should be driven by hope. The preparedness industry has spent decades selling fear and false radical independence. We believe deeply, from the data and shared experiences, that communities are where thriving happens — radical INTERdependence.
Ethan Knight, co-founder and CEO
Rather than preparing for unlikely doomsday scenarios, Community Prep focuses on the disruptions most people are actually likely to experience: two-day to four-week interruptions to essential services caused by wildfires, smoke events, storms, earthquakes, floods, extreme heat, winter weather, and other emergencies.
The company will launch with a carefully curated marketplace featuring products across six essential preparedness categories: water, food, power, air, first aid & medical, and communication. Every product is selected through a rigorous evaluation process that prioritizes ethics in corporate and supply chain, effectiveness and ease of use, suitability to a use case of 3-days to 4-weeks disruption, adaptation to multiple uses, storeability, cost, and aesthetics, of course!
This stuff is easily overwhelming: and our commitment is to do the work so our customers don’t have to.
Ethan Knight
But Community Prep’s ambitions extend well beyond e-commerce.
The Portland-based company is building a platform that combines trusted products with educational resources, local hazard guidance, skill building, and community connection. Future offerings will include preparedness recommendations tailored by ZIP code, partnerships with local organizations and businesses, neighborhood resilience initiatives, modular, city-scale solutions, and resources that help communities prepare together rather than alone.
The founding team brings decades of experience spanning emergency response, global risk management, community organizing, technology, nonprofit leadership, climate resilience, and systems design.
Knight previously founded Carpe Diem Education and co-founded the Gap Year Association, developing nationally recognized safety and risk management standards while serving as both a Wildland Firefighter and Wilderness EMT. He envisioned Community Prep after struggling to prepare his own home without supporting an industry that often promoted fear, isolation, and radical self-reliance.
Joining him are co-founder Jenn Sutherland, a community builder whose work spans six continents and whose graduate studies at Harvard focus on climate change, disaster preparedness, and regenerative development, and co-founder Jamil Grady, a systems strategist and builder known for designing resilient organizations and technologies grounded in service, craftsmanship, and human-centered problem solving.
Together, the founders share a vision that preparedness is fundamentally an act of community care.
They imagine cities where neighbors know one another before disaster strikes. Where local businesses, nonprofits, mutual aid groups, and emergency organizations are connected in networks of reciprocity. Where even after a week without electricity or running water, everyone has access to clean drinking water, food, medical support, and people who know how to help.
Buying a water filter isn’t the goal. Knowing the people you’ll share it with is.
Ethan Knight
Community Prep is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and ships throughout the United States and Canada while actively building partnerships with community organizations, cooperatives, preparedness groups, and local leaders interested in strengthening resilience where they live.
The company invites organizations, neighborhood groups, businesses, and individuals who share its vision to help build community preparedness networks in cities across the country.
Because preparedness isn’t just about surviving what’s coming, it’s about creating communities worth living in today.
About Community Prep
Community Prep is a Portland-based preparedness company helping people prepare for life’s inevitable disruptions through trusted products, practical education, and stronger communities. Focused on the two-day to four-week window of emergency disruptions, Community Prep believes resilience is built through hope, practical action, and human connection. By combining carefully vetted products, locally relevant guidance, and community partnerships, Community Prep is working toward a future where neighborhoods don’t just survive emergencies; they thrive together.
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