Kentucky Red Cross Recognizes Presidential Award Nominees

This week, we were pleased to recognize two volunteers for their extraordinary service to the Kentucky Red Cross. Congratulations to Marcia Brey and Sally Higgins for receiving this recognition and representing the Kentucky Region as nominees for the National Red Cross Presidential Award.

Marcia Brey

Marcia, from Louisville, is truly a volunteer who leads by example. Marcia is as comfortable leading the Louisville Area Chapter board as she is going out into the community to install smoke alarms. She is both a high level strategist and a boots on the ground doer. This is a rare quality that makes her invaluable to the organization. As an engineer for GE Appliances, she has combined her eye for detail with her heart for service to organize and lead seven smoke alarm installation events over the past few years. This is unprecedented throughout the region, division and across the country.

Sally Higgins

Our second recipient, Sally, is from the Frankfort area and is active throughout the region as a Disaster Services volunteer. There’s not much that she doesn’t have her hand in. The Kentucky Red Cross depends on her as an instructor, as someone who responds to disasters big and small, and as a mentor and guide to our new volunteers. Her peers know her as someone who expects a lot from herself, from others and from the Red Cross. She brings out the best in others and propels us all to be better at fulfilling the mission of the Red Cross.

Thank you, Marcia and Sally, for all you do here at the Red Cross!

Learn more about becoming a volunteer here.

Fire Prevention Week: Practice Escape Plans, Test Smoke Alarms

National Fire Prevention Week is October 6 to 12, and the American Red Cross urges everyone to practice their home fire escape plan and test their smoke alarms.

“As cold weather increases the risk of home fires, please prepare your family now during Fire Prevention Week,” said Trevor Riggen, senior vice president, Red Cross Disaster Cycle Services. “Install and test smoke alarms on every level of your home, and practice your escape plan until everyone can get out in two minutes or less.”

In a typical home fire, you may have as little as one to two minutes to escape safely from the time the smoke alarm sounds. Escape planning and practice can help you make the most of the time you have, giving everyone enough time to get out.

Plan ahead for your escape:

• Include at least two ways to get out of each room in your home fire escape plan.
• Select a meeting spot at a safe distance away from your home, such as your neighbor’s home or landmark like a specific tree in your front yard, where everyone can meet.
• Practice your escape plan until everyone can get out in two minutes or less.
• Install smoke alarms on every level of your home, placing them inside and outside bedrooms, and sleeping areas.
• Test smoke alarms monthly, and change the batteries at least once a year, if your model requires it.

Children are most at risk during fires. In fact, children under five are twice as likely as other people to die in a home fire. In addition to including them in practicing your escape plan, parents should teach their children what smoke alarms sound like and what to do when they hear one.

Home fires take seven lives each day in the U.S., most often in homes without working smoke alarms. That’s why the Red Cross is working with partners to install free smoke alarms in high-risk communities and help families create escape plans through its Home Fire Campaign, which launched five years ago in October 2014.

Over the past five years, the campaign has saved at least 642 lives across the country by installing nearly 2 million free smoke alarms and making more than 793,000 households safer from the threat of home fires. Learn more about preparing and preventing home fires here.