Recognizing Denise McGillian, South Central Kentucky Chapter Volunteer, for Receiving our Regional Clara Barton Award!

 

Denise, receiving the Clara Barton Award

Each year, the Kentucky Region honors the work of several key Red Cross volunteers who dedicate many hours in service to the Red Cross and their local communities.

One of those honors is our regional Clara Barton Award for Meritorious Volunteer Leadership. The Clara Barton Award is awarded to a volunteer who has served in several leadership positions held over a period of years, and who has demonstrated compassionate service and extraordinary achievements that have greatly benefited our community or organization. This volunteer embodies the pioneering leadership qualities of our founder and president, Clara Barton. This year, we were excited to honor Denise McGillian from our South Central Kentucky Chapter as our regional Clara Barton Award recipient! Denise gave more than 1,801 volunteer hours in 2022 and celebrated her 4-year anniversary with the Red Cross in August.

When Denise, a military spouse, first joined our Services to Armed Forces (SAF) team in 2018, she brought with her a wealth of personal military family experience and knowledge. Her first volunteer position at the Fort Knox American Red Cross office was as an office assistant, which she quickly expanded to organizing the office, supervising the main office volunteers and establishing volunteer recognition guidelines. Denise has since expanded her knowledge and expertise throughout the many services offered by our Services to Armed Forces.

Always looking for ways to help, Denise trained to become a SAF Casework Volunteer, working with military families to make sure their needs are met when they are faced with an emergency. Denise completed all the online course training and was quickly promoted to a lead caseworker role. Since then, Denise has worked on more than 1,000 SAF cases.

Denise also developed a training curriculum for both SAF caseworkers and other SAF volunteers, outlining all classes necessary for each SAF position, which serves as an excellent guide as new volunteers navigate the training process. Additionally, with a love and talent for research, she soon developed a comprehensive resource guide and referral list to assist the caseworkers.

Recently, due to Denise’s expertise and knowledge of casework, she was asked by the Division Director for the Central Atlantic Division, which the Kentucky Region is a part of, to assist with casework throughout the Central Atlantic Division. Without hesitation, Denise again accepted the challenge. As part of her role, she now helps review and provide feedback on casework notes to other regions in the Central Atlantic Division, and jumps in to help other regions in managing casework loads.

Denise’s passionate dedication to volunteering with SAF comes from her love of giving back to her community: “We get to help so many people here. It’s just so heartwarming,” said Denise. “I love the opportunity to help our veterans and retirees, especially when they’re on really hard times.”

As a military spouse, Denise knows and sees the needs within our active duty and veteran communities. She is extremely compassionate, knowledgeable, and makes sure she uses all available resources to help meet the needs of the people she helps. For these reasons, we are so proud to name her as our Clara Barton Award recipient!

Learn more about volunteering with the Red Cross at redcross.org/volunteer.

Kentucky Red Cross Honors Rickey Porter as Clara Barton Award Recipient

Since 2013, Rickey Porter has been a “Serving Leader” in the Red Cross Kentucky Region and the Western Kentucky Chapter. Rickey maintains incredible empathy, patience and poise while taking the steps to ensure that the Red Cross is prepared to serve our community. 

He has mentored new and seasoned volunteers alike, and has paved the way for others to provide high levels of service to those in their moments of greatest need. For these reasons, we are proud to announce him as a recipient of this year’s regional Clara Barton Award. The Clara Barton Award recognizes service in volunteer leadership positions held over a period of years.

In the nine years Rickey has been with the Red Cross, he has continued to take on additional responsibilities to ensure that volunteers and the region have what they need to grow and be successful. He has deployed to disasters at home and across the country more than 20 times because he believes in providing for those who have been affected. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rickey has deployed 8 times and logged more than 1,060 hours helping locally. He also responds to an average of 200 home fire cases a year and treats each one as they are the most important one.

Rickey is also a member of our Integrated Care and Condolence Team. In this role, he supports not only the Western Kentucky Chapter but the South Central Kentucky Chapter as well, often leading to interactions with hospital social workers, medical professionals and local coroners. He has been essential in the growth of community partnerships within Western Kentucky with various churches and has provided preparedness and safety education to the community. He is a hands-only CPR instructor and a First Aid/CPR instructor and maintains his certifications just so he can teach life-saving skills to our volunteers. He also provides First Aid stations on behalf of the Red Cross when requested for events such as the Owensboro Air Show and the Senior Games in Hopkinsville.

Rickey’s calm, competent leadership has been essential to the success of the Red Cross mission and objectives here in the Kentucky Region and his expertise is invaluable to our mission delivery. As a region, we are grateful for the support of such an outstanding volunteer!

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.