The Medical Reserve Corps of Nebraska and Western Iowa held a training session this weekend. The group prepared for everything from Anthrax to a large-scale disaster.

While the blood at the training session was fake, and the "pills" were actually M&Ms, the goal was to prepare volunteers for events that are as real as it gets.

"If something really happens, we need to know what to do, where we lack in our skills and where we're strong in our skills so we can learn to work together," volunteer Erin Matz said.

Jamie Moore of United Way of the Midlands says the emergency response program is important "because practice makes perfect, and if you've not actually done it and you have to do it, it's a different type of feel."

Saturday and Sunday, volunteers got the feel of how to handle a wide-spread natural disaster and even a disease outbreak.

"It was really neat to see how everybody could work together," Matz said. "We're from a lot of different areas, towns around Omaha, so it was really neat to see how everyone jumped in to help where needed."

The entire Medical Reserve Corps is made up of volunteers, mostly from the medical field. They hold this training once a year.