When you help one person, you help everyone

 

Lauren at the Mayfield Memorial 

 By Pat Kondas

After a career in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industry, Lauren Mikulski shared she needed a change of pace and a chance to recharge. She signed up with the American Red Cross in November, and responded to a few local home fire responses as a Disaster Action Team member. In her heart, she knew she wanted to deploy to national disasters. On a Monday in December, she took the training to drive the Emergency Response Vehicle, and by that Thursday she was called to deploy to the Kentucky tornadoes.

Though it came about quickly, Lauren had no qualms about serving during the holidays. She says, “My first thought was 'what are the victims of the tornado going to go through on Christmas day?' There's no way I could sit at home and enjoy Christmas while thinking about that...thinking I could have been down here helping. It became a very easy decision.”

When she first arrived in Western Kentucky, the need for additional feeding volunteers had decreased, so she moved over to the Distribution of Emergency Supplies team, tasked with loading the Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicles with emergency supplies and providing Emergency Aid Stations with relief items for community members. And because many people had transportation barriers, they went door to door seeing how they could help, “like a mobile emergency aid station.” She then moved back to the Feeding team, providing hot meals to residents in Mayfield. 

“It was really impactful, really rewarding, to be able to help people immediately – to be able to have that direct contact with the community members, to be able to make their day just a little bit easier.”

About her fellow Red Cross volunteers, Lauren observed “they're all here for the right reasons. They just want to help. They want to be put to good use. We don't care really what we do, we just want to make sure our time is being used so that we can help people. So we're willing to pitch in wherever we need to. Everyone pitches in. It's a really great culture at the Red Cross.”

Lauren's philosophy is clear. “I really believe when you help one person, you help everyone. You can't help everyone, but the fact that you do a good deed and then someone else does one – it's a chain reaction. When you help someone, you help everyone,” she explained. “This is a time for me to recharge. I don't feel burnt out from this work. I actually feel recharged by it.”

The Red Cross thanks you, Lauren, for keeping the chain reaction going and helping us all to recharge. You can join the Red Cross as a volunteer at redcross.org/volunteer.

Spiritual Care Volunteers help heal invisible wounds

By Jim Gilloon

Zonia Quero Zieda of North Carolina just wrapped up her 46th volunteer deployment in Western Kentucky. Born in Venezuela, the sound of her voice makes you feel like everything will get better, which is a perfect trait for a Red Cross Disaster Spiritual Care volunteer. Our role here is to “provide comfort and care to people displaced by last month's tornadoes that devasted parts of Kentucky,” explained Zonia. 

Zonia first began her Red Cross volunteer career seventeen years ago in Eastern Washington, educating a diverse population of immigrants living in high-risk communities on the importance home fire safety. She’s a volunteer because "I am a firm believer of the Red Cross Mission and what we do."

She would then go on to join the Red Cross Spiritual Care team more than four years ago and is trained to recognize the signs that someone may need assistance. "The first thing I learned as a Spiritual Care volunteer is to listen… God gave us one mouth and two ears."

Her best practices include "Listen to the clients – not just words – but what they are saying from their heart... It's really about getting to know the client."  

Recently, Zonia and another volunteer went on a Spiritual Care call to meet with a woman who spoke about her only surviving sibling of six. The woman insisted on having her sister come over to the house to be with her family. The woman's sister kept saying," I am okay here, I am okay." Unfortunately later that night, one of the multiple tornadoes that devastated parts of Western Kentucky came through her sister's town, her home was destroyed, and she lost her sister. 

Zonia and the woman would go on to communicate for the next several weeks where Zonia offered her compassionate support.  A couple of weeks later, the woman called Zonia to say, "THANK YOU!" and "I no longer wake up at 3 in the morning filled with guilt, sadness, and tears," and that "she is almost cured of her guilt because of Zonia's compassionate words and just listening to the woman." 

One thing Zonia and her team emphasize is that people affected by disasters should not let the word 'spiritual' keep them from seeking care. “We are not the religious group that people might think of. We are there for everybody… We're just here to inspire hope," she explained.   

The Disaster Spiritual Care team is a special force that supports people in their darkest days. They make up one of the many ways that the Red Cross supports the emotional needs of a community following a disaster.

Two times a charm for Sandra Heggeness

By Jim Gilloon

 

As a retired office manager at a local retail store, Sandra Heggeness feels right at home volunteering in a Red Cross shelter caring for individuals displaced from their homes by tornadoes or other disasters during volunteer deployments.

 

When she’s not deployed, she serves as the local Disaster Program Manager’s volunteer partner in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sandra wears many hats as a Red Cross volunteer, from supporting the day-to-day disaster needs at the Red Cross, to working as a Shelter Supervisor and a Shelter Resident Transition team member. 

After she returned home after her first two-week assignment, she is back for her second deployment in Western Kentucky tornado recovery efforts. "I came out to help people," said Sandra. "I saw the worst damages I have ever seen."

 

"I came back to Kentucky because there was more work to be done.  I felt a strong desire to help the residents that were still in need.  I like to do as much as I can, and sometimes two weeks is not enough time to complete the work."

 

When deployed to the Texas Floods, Sandra was at a staging area near Fort Sam Houston where her dad was buried, and took the opportunity to visit his gravesite.

We asked Sandra what stood out in her mind when helping families after the devastating tornadoes last month... "Kentucky people are strong and resilient and need much help, which encouraged me to help them.

 

Thank you, Sandra, for your five years of dedication and the love you have to help others during their darkest days.  

 

Red Cross training is free, but the hope you provide is priceless. Visit redcross.org/volunteertoday to join.

Rallying to Support the Community

Bob and his team of volunteers from all across the country.

By Pat Kondas

After a career in the restaurant business and a year with the American Red Cross, Bob Henry served on his first official Red Cross deployment in Western Kentucky. He began his assignment managing an Emergency Aid Distribution Station in Dawson Springs, one of the towns hardest hit by the recent tornado.

The Emergency Aid Stations were a new solution for the Red Cross. With such widespread damage and thousands of homes affected, Red Cross teams set up mobile stations to provide supplies, as well as health and mental health services to people affected by the tornado. Bob began managing anywhere from six to twelve people, working under all kinds of conditions, including near-freezing temperatures – one of the items he provided to the Health and Mental Health workers is a heater for their area. Despite the conditions, he estimates they served 75-100 people each day, handing out shovels, rakes, cleanup kits, totes and other items. They also provided moral and emotional support.

Bob said they had people stopping by to pick up supplies, "[...] and then they realized that there's somebody here that they can talk to.” One problem that he said they saw from the people that stopped by was guilt – that they were okay, while so many of their neighbor’s homes didn't make it. He said that the Mental Health workers rallied to support the people who were working through that.

Bob had volunteered during the floods in Kentucky last spring, driving Disaster Assessment teams around, and he got some experience then. “But,” he said, “this is the first time I've ever been on ground zero before. I've been through storms, some tragedies. Nothing like this.”

Bob Henry at the Emergency Aid Distribution Station in Dawson Springs, KY.

As far as the Red Cross efforts go, Bob shared, "We have been able to do what we're supposed to do as far as get the materials out and provide support.”

The Red Cross thanks you, Bob, for being there to provide the needed support – material and moral. 

There are many different ways to volunteer. Training is free, but the hope you provide is priceless. Visit redcross.org/volunteertoday to get started today.

Helping Where It's Needed Most

 By Jim Gilloon and Taylor Poisall

Tanya Garrity, a long-time Kentucky Red Cross volunteer, has been 200 miles from her home and family in Shelbyville, KY since the day after the tornadoes struck Kentucky. And for the last 30 days, Tanya has been resolutely focused on helping families displaced from December's devastating tornadoes. 

From those first initial days after the tornado, she was running a Red Cross shelter at Jennings Creek Elementary School and caring for community member's immediate needs. But she didn't stop there. One evening after her volunteer shift, she was still in her Red Cross vest when she stopped to get gas. She came across a man and instinctively knew he needed her help. Even though they didn't speak the same language, through an app she asked him if he was displaced by the tornado, and they began communicating through Google Translate in Swahili and she found out he was scared to go to a shelter. 

The following day, Tanya ended up bringing his family food and ended up delivering meals to seven families for the next week and a half. She shared "just because that family didn't come to the Red Cross shelter doesn't mean we can't care for them."

Tanya then went to Walmart to shop for the families, where she procured formula, bottles, a playpen and more for the youngest member of the family, who was only a few months old. At the time, the baby was sleeping on a pillow on the floor, and the bed Tanya gave them was the first time the baby would be sleeping on a bed thanks to the Red Cross. When she was leaving, she shared with the family that at the Red Cross, “our role is to be humanitarians and all we care about is your recovery - that’s just what we do.”

She left their home with tears in her eyes and pride that “we broke the barrier down” so the families had what they needed ahead of Christmas and to get through the next few weeks. 

This one situation illustrates the way Red Cross volunteers like Tanya go above and beyond to use the tools they have to help others. She lives the motto of serving with "relentless kindness, because we are a compassionate organization." 

Thank you, Tanya, for your dedication and compassion to others in need. There are many ways to give back as a Red Cross volunteer. Visit redcross.org/volunteertoday to join learn more. 

You never know who you will meet at the Red Cross. Tanya was thrilled she met Mary Poppins at a shelter!

"Helping people is my main goal"

 

By Pat Kondas

Deidra and Larry York have been Red Cross volunteers for several years - Deidra for twelve years and Larry for the last three years. Since she joined Red Cross, Deidra has deployed nine times in the last few years because "helping people is my main goal. I cannot sit at home if there's a disaster, especially in my home community." Larry finally joined up because, Deidra says, "he finally decided that I was going to keep doing it, and he didn't like being at home by himself, so he decided to do it, too." Now they always deploy together, usually in Damage Assessment, where Red Cross uses data to inform the needs of the community affected.

 

They love the Damage Assessment work because Larry likes to drive around. "That's his thing," Deidra explained. So, he does the driving, and she does the paperwork side of it. For the Kentucky tornado relief operation, they were first assigned to an Emergency Aid Station in Benton. Between Deidra and Larry, they knew almost every single community member that came by for relief supplies or Red Cross information.

 

While they were at the aid station, local neighbors would drop off items at the nearby distribution area. "I have to brag on the community a little. It has been amazing. Even the Red Cross volunteers from other states said they had never seen the outpouring of support for a community like our home has."

Their next assignment was at the relief operation’s headquarters, where their local knowledge and experience at the Red Cross was extremely valuable. They assisted in different areas, including helping the Finance Team organize and record the Client Assistance Cards that disaster responders use to get assistance directly to people.

 

As a member of the Disaster Action Team for the Western Kentucky Chapter, Deidra is familiar with getting assistance cards to clients after intake is completed. Not only did she help support many needs, but Deidra also responded twice to local home fires to help families affected by a different type of disaster.  

Deidra and Larry are the kind of volunteers that make up the Red Cross. Their willingness to shift to help with whatever work needs to be done. The Red Cross thanks you for being such a great team. You are appreciated. Join them at redcross.org/volunteertoday.

Deidra York shows off her collection of Red Cross pins and patches. 

Her Kentucky Pride pin stands out the most.

Serving in Honor of Clara Barton's Legacy

By Pat Kondas

Jessica Jones' humanitarian spirit is highlighted by her adaptability and willingness to help where it's needed most. A Red Cross volunteer only since October, Jessica deployed for the first time to Kentucky after the tornadoes to assist in sheltering. When she arrived, she learned there was a special role that was needed more. Jessica shared, “You have to pivot and go where you're needed.” And that's how she ended up as a COVID-19 Safety Officer. 

Her background is in safety education and risk management – keeping people safe at work – made her a good fit for the position. Day to day, she travels around the western half of the disaster area, going to all the different Red Cross sites, making sure people are comfortable in COVID-related situations and that they're following Red Cross policy to keep everyone safe. She advises them on how they can adapt their practices and provides extra signage and other items. She appreciated the fact that “there are different options that we can provide that can make an environment even safer.”

At the Red Cross, the care and safety of our volunteers and community members is our number one priority. To help keep everyone safe, we’re using COVID safety precautions including masks, health screenings, enhanced cleaning procedures and encouraging social distancing regardless of vaccine status.

Jessica shared people are doing their best to follow the safety guidelines. She says in her discussions with them, “The common thread is that they want to keep their teammates safe. They're focusing more on their partners than themselves sometimes, which is, I think, a beautiful motivation.”

From San Bernardino, California, Jessica said she joined Red Cross because she does volunteer work with other groups working in disaster response and, “We're always running into the Red Cross, so I wanted to get involved and learn more about the Red Cross way of doing things.”

“Clara Barton is absolutely one of my guiding heroes who reminds me to be brave and creative and help where you see help is needed .”

It wasn't in her volunteer job description, but Jessica also helped make holiday bags for 

her fellow Red Crossers deployed over the holidays.

Clara Barton and the Red Cross thank you, Jessica, for being brave and helping where help is needed. To follow in Jessica's footsteps, become a volunteer at redcross.org/volunteer

A Red Cross Volunteer Who Builds Bridges

 

By Mimi Teller

Geno Rosario of Paducah, KY, is not an engineer and doesn’t work in construction. While his bridges do help people get from Point A to Point B, they’re not for transportation – the bridges American Red Cross volunteer Geno Rosario constructs connect Kentucky’s Hispanic population with the disaster assistance available through the Red Cross.

On December 10-11, 2021, thousands of people in Kentucky and neighboring states lost their homes during the devastating tornadoes that struck the region. In response, the Red Cross set up assistance programs for anyone whose home was affected by the storm. The outreach program’s success however relies on those who need support to step forward and register with the Red Cross to receive aid. Too often, however, Hispanic populations don’t take advantage of these services for a variety of reasons, many of which are centered around a lack of familiarity with the Red Cross Mission and how the organization guards everyone’s privacy.

In steps Rosario, a retired, 21-year veteran of the Paducah, KY, fire department, and a 23-year Red Cross volunteer. Born in New York City, and raised in Puerto Rico, Rosario’s fluency in Spanish and familiarity with Hispanic community leaders places him in a position to connect the Latino community with Red Cross support.

“Many Hispanic community members are afraid of anyone even with a little authority, or anyone wearing a uniform” shared Rosario. “You have to gain their trust. You have to go through the trusted leaders in their community to reach people.”

Soon after the tornadoes hit Mayfield on December 10, Rosario called Pastor Jaime Masso at the Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana Church in Mayfield, KY. Rosario learned the church had escaped damage, and that Pastor Masso opened up the church to community members seeking solace and shelter. The following morning, Rosario arranged for the Red Cross to provide water, snacks, cots, and blankets to the church to bring comfort to a community in shock.

When the Red Cross started providing disaster assistance, Rosario feared the information might not reach many in Mayfield’s Hispanic population, a community of over 1,400 people. Rosario’s home in Paducah was nearly 30 miles away from Mayfield, and he needed to find people in Mayfield to connect him with the local Hispanic community.

Rosario reached out again to Pastor Masso, whose congregation’s volunteers were cooking and delivering 150-200 hot meals daily to the Latino/Hispanic communities affected by the storms. Rosario realized the people going into these communities would know exactly who needed assistance from the Red Cross.

Julia Hernandez, a volunteer cook at Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana Church, was among those who connected Geno with dozens of people who otherwise might not learn or know of the multitude of services the Red Cross provided – always with complete confidentiality, and regardless of anyone’s citizenship status. Sheltering, financial assistance, health visits, as well as grief and crisis counseling are among the services available to people who meet with the Red Cross.

Kentucky and Red Cross are lucky to have a bridge builder like Rosario, someone who helps provide passage over an obstacle, something that is otherwise difficult to cross.

If you or someone you know has been affected by disaster, contact the Red Cross at 1-800-RED-CROSS (800- 733-2767). 

Following the December 10-11 series of devastating tornadoes, Geno Rosario (right) connected with Mayfield’s Hispanic community in need of disaster assistance with the help of church ­­­­cook Julia Hernandez (left). 

“Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to help people”

By Pat Kondas

After joining the American Red Cross about four years ago, Tara Cardinal from Rhode Island is on her first national Red Cross deployment. And on Day 1, she learned that flexibility in a disaster is key. 

Tara was deployed to Bowling Green on December 18 to work as a Disaster Action Team member to help cover the local disaster responder team while they sheltered and cared for their community. After a couple of days of no home fire response calls, she decided to spend her on-call time making herself extra useful. She volunteered with another agency running a “store” where people affected by the tornadoes could pick up clothes, household goods, kids' stuff, “even dog food.” Tara sorted items and helped shoppers, including helping a five-year-old little girl find newborn clothes for her doll.

In the spirit of flexibility, Tara ran into a fellow Red Cross volunteer and she shared she wanted to do more to help. "He asked if I knew computers. I said yes. Then asked if I knew about spreadsheets. I said yes. So for the rest of the day, I was doing client intake. I met a lot of clients who were displaced... I made someone smile." 

As for being away from home over the holidays, Tara says, “ I thought it would be harder, and I'm not sure why it's not; but in a way – for me – I'm really happy to be here.” One of the first things she did after arriving was attend the candlelight vigil in Bowling Green to mourn with the community. She said various people spoke and the message was one of hope. The lasting impression she was left with was that “everybody is so helping and trying to do what they can do, and they are focusing on being there for each other.”

She has found the Red Cross a good fit, saying, “Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to help people.” Her job back home is as a caregiver assisting elderly clients. As for her experience at the Red Cross, she says, “Everybody I have met at the Red Cross have positive attitudes. The things that they teach us – like to meet the clients where they are – are really great. And I'm very proud to be a part of that... We all just pitch in together. Something has to be done and we just work together.”

Thank you, Tara, for pitching in and being a part of the Red Cross.

When disasters strike, it is a team effort. Massive disasters like these tornadoes leave behind an incredible amount of need and no single organization can do it alone. It's thanks to the collaboration between our community partners and volunteers, we can all provide relief to our communities. 

To get involved with the Red Cross, head to redcross.org/volunteer