Volunteer Profile: Ainsley Jones

Ainsley Jones

Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Ainsley Jones is a lifelong Red Crosser. His father, Larry Jones, served as a Louisville Chapter volunteer for more than 30 years, and quickly involved his son in the organization -- as an infant, Ainsley starred in a public service announcement centered on the chapter’s efforts to help families impacted by local disasters. During the summer, his father would drive him all across Kentucky, and together, they would visit various chapters. “My dad was my soulmate and best friend, his work with the American Red Cross was and still is an inspiration to me, the first item I ever took to school for show and tell was my dad's Disaster Services hard hat,” Ainsley explained.

Ainsley became more involved with the Red Cross and spent his adolescent years volunteering and taking preparedness and safety classes. He even recalls a time when was able to use skills he learned to help to save his dad’s life. “I ventured out of my room to discover my dad choking in our kitchen. I remember distinctly going through all the steps I had learned as a Junior Red Crosser to dislodge the scrambled eggs he was choking on,” said Ainsley.

Larry Jones

Following in his father’s footsteps, Ainsley currently serves a board member for the Louisville Area Chapter. While his role on the board is still evolving, he feels he serves as an ambassador for the American Red Cross every day. When he wears a Red Cross logo, he feels the same sense of pride his father felt when he volunteered for the Red Cross.

While he cites the Red Cross as one of the major influences in his life, Ainsley also holds other interests as well. He is a huge fan of soccer, and the sport is very important to him. “The way I think and approach tasks are rooted in the philosophies soccer has brought into my life,” he said. He considers himself a student of cinema and shares a love for architecture, interior design and landscaping.

“My favorite quote from Martin Luther King Jr. is ‘Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' I feel like it embodies the mission of the American Red Cross and reiterates that it's your blessing to be able to help people in need regardless of their circumstance.” Ainsley encourages everyone to go out and volunteer with the Red Cross.

If you would like to join the Red Cross as a volunteer, please visit www.redcross.org/volunteer.

Profile: Pam Williams

A part of the Summit, Portage, and Medina Chapter in Ohio, Pam Williams has been volunteering for the Red Cross since 2006. Pam is from Akron, OH, and is the manager for government operations. As a part of external affairs, Pam maintains communication between the Red Cross and its government partners, including everything from state and local governments up to entities on the national level such as FEMA. In 2015 she was deployed to Kentucky as part of the summer flood relief efforts. 

She is an active member of her community, which is how she was introduced to the Red Cross: She was asked to join the Red Cross board, and rather than simply hold the position, she wanted to learn more and get involved. She attended trainings at her local Red Cross, took classes, and eventually got involved in disaster operations.

Rearranging her schedule and putting her home-life on hold is difficult, but like most people who deploy to disaster operations, Pam is ready to go the moment the call comes in. She has a kit prepared with essentials--clothes, paperwork, and candy--to take with her, and then she’s ready to go.

Working in disaster operations has shown Pam the resilience people have in the face of disaster, and allows her to appreciate what she has and how fortunate it is she is able to assist. It has also given her an appreciation for the effort of the individuals who volunteer during deployment, as well as the combined group effort it takes to keep disaster operations running.

Sometimes disaster operations are fortunate enough to have a base already running. Other times, they have to start from scratch.

“Sometimes we’re working an operation out of an empty big box store,” Pam said during our interview. “To watch people from around the country who don’t know each other come together and in hours put together an operation—it’s magical.”

Seeing the sheer number of people who put their lives on hold when they are called to deploy is one of the things that amazes Pam the most about her job, and according to Pam, it’s the consistent training and knowledge taught by the Red Cross that allows the volunteers to work alongside people from opposite ends of the country to accomplish their goals. She encourages people to volunteer with the Red Cross, because even though large operations like disaster relief require a lot of hands and many working pieces, one person can still make a difference.

Volunteer Profile: Mike Sewell

Meet Mike Sewell, a dedicated disaster volunteer whose work ethic is matched by his passion for serving the community. Mike was born and raised in Jefferson County and has lived in Kentucky his whole life. His life changed drastically when a motorcycle accident left him seriously injured and unable to work.  “I got to the point to where I was pretty depressed and my doctor said I needed to get out of the house, that’s when I started with the Red Cross,” he said. Mike started out volunteering in the Service to the Armed Forces in 2009, however, his interest shifted to Disaster Services shortly after lending his assistance in a local flood.

As a disaster volunteer, Mike has experienced just about every type of natural disaster.  However, there is one case that sticks out to him the most. It was his first deployment on a disaster run, and he was headed to Pikeville, Kentucky to respond to a severe rainstorm. When he arrived at the scene, he was speechless; this particular storm dumped over a foot of rain on the small town, turning valleys into rivers.  “I seen a senior citizen standing outside and I went to speak with her, now here’s a lady with her whole life, everything just laying in piles, that really stuck with me, it was at that moment  I decided I want to really connect with these people and make a difference in their life,” he said.

At the age of 58, most people would be looking forward to retirement. Mike, on the other hand, has no plans of slowing down. He recently accepted a new title as Volunteer Disaster Program Manager and is currently assembling teams to increase the volunteer base throughout Louisville and the surrounding counties. “Volunteering with the Red Cross for me means being able to be a light in someone’s darkness,” he said.The Red Cross has given Mike a chance to serve as a beacon of hope for those who need it most.

If you would like to join the Red Cross as a volunteer, please visit www.redcross.org/volunteer.

Profile: Linda Dintenfass

Based in the Southeast Michigan Chapter, Linda Dintenfass is the assistant director of external communications for the Red Cross. As part of external relations, it is her job to make sure messages sent to the community and partners of the Red Cross maintain a commonality and a consistency. She manages communications with critical partners, including donors, media, and government agencies, and makes sure the components of external relations are collaborating with each other as well as the other functions within the Red Cross.

Linda, who is from Ann Arbor, MI, became a member of the Red Cross in 2005. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Linda found she couldn’t sit still; she had to do something to help. Soon after she discovered that her local Red Cross was offering opportunities for an intense, condensed training in disaster relief and deployment to areas affected by Katrina, and she got involved.

Disaster deployment for her now means putting her life on hold and quickly rearranging her schedule. Nevertheless, Linda has it down to a science by now. The dogs are sent to daycare. She packs copies of all the paperwork she might need during an operation, both in electronic form and in hard copies in case the area she’s being deployed to do not have internet access. She does her research and checks social media to get a sense of how the disaster is being covered.

One of the things that interests Linda the most about deployment operations comes from doing research: She loves getting to know the communities she is being deployed to. There are many times when she finds herself deployed to places she knows nothing about, so part of her research process has become finding out the history of the area and “chatting her roommate’s ears off” about what she’s found when she gets back to her sleeping arrangements at night.

No two disasters are the same, so gathering this information also helps her prepare for the unique challenges that might come up during deployments--trying to coordinate a disaster response in a state like Kentucky that is split into two different time zones, for example.

“Disaster is the great equalizer,” she said during our interview. “Volunteering has given me the opportunity to help clients in their darkest times.”

Volunteering in disaster relief for the Red Cross has left Linda humbled, and she encourages others to volunteer as well. Working with clients and getting their faith and trust is a huge honor and responsibility, and a constant reminder that, collectively, the volunteers of the Red Cross make a difference in people’s lives.

Louisville Red Cross Hosts 29th Annual Holiday Party

Santa will be arriving a few days early in Louisville this year for the holidays—on a fire truck. He and Mrs. Claus will be stopping by the American Red Cross Louisville Area Chapter building to greet children and pass out presents for the 29^th Annual Holiday Party.

The party is held every year for Kentuckiana children whose homes have been lost or severely damaged to fires. The auditorium is decorated with snowflakes and garland and turned into a winter wonderland. The room where we host health and safety training is turned into a welcome area, where kids and their families can enjoy pizza, games, and crafts: the only reindeer might be ones the kids make out of candy canes, but the magic is no less real when the kids head upstairs to meet with Santa and Mrs. Claus and receive their presents.

The people who work behind the scenes work their own kind of magic to make sure that everything runs smoothly during the festivities. The fire engine Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive on is provided by the Louisville Professional Firefighters Union Local 345, which sponsors the party every year and purchases the toys for the children. The party itself would not come together every year without the work of Kim Jackson, who works in disaster services, and her team of 30 volunteers.

Kim and her team are the ones who decorate the auditorium and organize the presents the kids will receive at the party. They spend a morning with area firefighters before the party, shopping for gifts for nearly 150 children, and then spend the afternoon sorting through all of them so that each child will have a bag of toys when Santa arrives. Once the party is in full swing, the volunteers are busy helping the children with crafts, painting faces, guiding them upstairs, and helping families take their gifts back to their cars when the party ends.

Over 120 children and their families will attend the Holiday Party this year. With nearly 25 home fires every month, the Louisville Area Chapter provides fire victims with assistance for food, clothing, temporary shelter, and other needs families might have. It is because of the support of people like Kim and her volunteers, and the firefighters of the Local 345 Union, that the Red Cross can provide these services and give Santa the chance to come early for these families.