Volunteers Respond to California

Since Sunday, several wildfires have swept across Southern California, destroying homes and forcing hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate. The American Red Cross was among the first on the scene responding to the wildfires, providing food, shelter, counseling and other emergency assistance made possible, in part, by the financial support from members of the Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program.

As winds are forecasted to spread flames across the state over the next several days, the Red Cross will remain on the ground providing emergency assistance. In the coming weeks, the Red Cross will continue working with community partners to identify resources that can aid in the recovery of individuals and families affected by the wildfires.

Eight disaster volunteers have left the Upstate en route to San Diego to join the 3,000+ Red Cross workers already there providing relief. Four of our volunteers will be providing Mass Care services of sheltering and feeding; Three more will provide client casework assisting evacuees determine their disaster-caused need; and one will provide her skills as a Red Cross nurse. All of our volunteers give of their time knowing they are facing a three-week deployment.

If you would like to get involved in this relief operation, you can make a financial contribution through this chapter securely on-line by logging onto www.upstatescredcross.org, or by stopping by the chapter. If you wish to directly impact the lives of future victims, call the Upstate Chapter today at 271-8222 and sign up for training in disaster services.

Upstate Red Cross Sends Volunteers to Help with North Texas Flooding

Shallow puddles suddenly rose from ankles to knees, and then to the shoulders of residents in North Central Texas. Flooding in Texas began two weeks ago, centered near Gainesville (60 miles north of Ft. Worth, just below the Oklahoma border) in the north central section of the state. It spread to over 47 counties in the north and north-central areas of the state.

These floods have caused tremendous damage and inflicted extreme hardship on those in the affected counties. Eight volunteers from the Upstate Red Cross were activated and responded last week to calls for assistance. They conducted damage assessment in areas known to be affected, assisted in shelter operations to house those displaced from their homes, and staffing needs for Red Cross responders.

They joined 528 Red Cross volunteers from many chapters throughout the country who came together to care for the immediate, disaster-caused needs of the Texas victims facing flood damage.

We are proud of our volunteers. We wish them well and look forward to their return in a couple of weeks.

Red Cross Rushes Aid to Victims of Taylors Crossing Fire

11:30 p.m., the American Red Cross, Upstate South Carolina Chapter, received a call that victims of the Taylors Crossing apartments were in need of assistance due to a fire that gutted nearly 20 units and caused a degree of damage to another 10.

Four highly trained volunteers left their homes in the middle of the night to respond to the needs of the victims offering hope and the sense that a better day will soon dawn when the sun begins to rise.

At 1:00 a.m., the mood amongst the victims was somber. Daddies were holding their children close, neighbors were hugging neighbors, one young mother sat alone, clutching a photo of her eight month old daughter who was safely sleeping at a friends house. The mother told the story of a knock that came in the night awakening her to dark smoke and the chocking smell of fire. She had just enough time to grab her shoes and the photo she held so tenderly while her husband grabbed the child. Together, all three rushed out the door to safety.

The Chief of the Taylors Fire Department told of the heroic act of two firefighters that propped ladders against the burning building to rescue an elderly victim who would not leave her apartment until her dog was safely removed. The firefighters rescued the dog and returned for the victim. The victim was carried down the ladder and safely evacuated to a nearby hospital where she was treated for smoke inhalation.

Amazingly, no victims or firefighters were seriously injured in this fire. Many who lost there homes and possessions have begun to make there way into the Red Cross to begin rebuilding their lives with the assistance of the Upstate Red Cross. Some victims will need food, shelter, medications and emotional counseling. All of which can be provided by the Red Cross because of the generosity of the Greenville community.

Upstate residents trust the American Red Cross with their financial contributions as a means of caring for their friends and neighbors. Highly-trained staff will provide only the assistance needed based on the individual victims disaster-caused needs.

Individual house fires and multi-unit fires are the Upstate's number one disaster. This scenario has played itself out 271 times across the Upstate this year. For this one disaster alone, the Red Cross will commit approximately $20,000 in assistance to the victims. The victims of last nights apartment fire have 951 predecessors who have received over $260,000 in disaster assistance; all of which is provided free of charge to the victim.

We are honored to serve the victims across our community, but we need the help of Upstate residents to ensure the continued and effective delivery of service to these victims and the victims of disasters yet to come. We urge the community to get involved and make a difference by making a financial contribution to the Upstate chapter. Contributions can be made by calling (864)271-8222 or by logging onto upstatescredcross.org and making a secure, online contribution.

Volunteer Rhonda Hunt teaches life-saving skills

When Rhonda Hunt was 10 years old, she watched wide-eyed as emergency personnel attempted to revive her grandmother using CPR. Unfortunately, her grandmother did not survive, but Hunt decided then that she wanted to learn how to save lives.

"It was something I always wanted to have the knowledge to do, even as a kid," she says. "You often wonder what impact you might have in trying to save a life."

Today Hunt is a health and safety professional with Michelin North America. She also uses her knowledge to benefit the Upstate Chapter of the American Red Cross by serving on the health and safety committee and training other volunteers about safety, life-saving techniques and emergency preparedness.

Hunt initially became involved with the Red Cross through her previous employer, Fluor Corp., where she was in charge of emergency response. Hunt says when she moved to Michelin, the company encouraged her to stay involved.

"It's something I need to know for my employer. But then I can also pass that training on to my community and my church members," she says.

Hunt's most memorable experience was about two years ago when she was asked to stand in as the temporary health and safety director for the Pickens County chapter of the Red Cross. There, she says, she felt the full impact of what classroom experience can mean to real people when she worked with families who had lost their homes to fire.

The volunteers under her not only provided shelter and basic necessities to the victims, but also emotional support and comfort kits with teddy bears for the children.

"They are just so compassionate," she says.

Hunt spends between two and 10 hours a month at the Red Cross, depending on if she is teaching a class. She hopes she never has to use her life-saving skills on someone but says it gives her confidence knowing she can respond.

"I've had to respond to several emergencies, but I've never actually utilized CPR or resuscitation in saving someone's life. But it's always in the back of your mind, 'What if?' " Hunt says.

Having the skills to respond to an emergency is the main reason Hunt believes people should get involved with the Red Cross.

"It is very important that more people in the community be trained and able to respond," she says, using the example of Hurricane Katrina as a time when there were not enough trained volunteers to take care of all the needs.

"And you never know when you might become a recipient of Red Cross services," she adds. "The things that we've been blessed with are only temporary and can be taken away in the blink of an eye. That's what continues to stay in my mind."

Volunteer Sue Conklin Makes a Difference

When Greenville businesswoman Sue Conklin sees a need in her community, she fulfills it. Whether as the owner of The Puppy Nanny or as a volunteer for the American Red Cross, she has a true passion for making her community better.

Experience has taught Sue that animals respond better to compassion rather than force, a business philosophy she learned from Horse Whisperers, Monty Roberts and John Lyons. The gentle technique has served her well as she and her husband Paul trained thoroughbred horses for 20 years, managing farms in Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

When career changes brought Sue to the Upstate and back to dog training, she identified a need in the community for in-home training services. As do many successful business owners, Sue filled a niche in the market and built her business, The Puppy Nanny, on home consultations. The ability to offer a flexible schedules and training in both behavioral and puppy consultations distinguishes her in the field of training.

A true “dog whisperer,” Sue’s expertise is in demand. She has been featured on local TV shows speaking about dog training and safety. She appeared on the Montel Williams Show and has given demonstrations on obedience and training at pet expos across the country. She has been written about in articles for national dog magazines and has authored commentary on training issues featured in local newspapers.

Believing strongly that education is the key to making positive change, Sue took the Pet First Aid class offered by the Upstate South Carolina Chapter of the American Red Cross. Seeing the value of this skill for her business, Sue became a volunteer instructor for the Red Cross and now teaches Pet First Aid to her clients and others in the community.

As an active volunteer instructor of the Red Cross, Sue realized that the pet first aid equipment owned by the Red Cross needed repair. Again, seeing a need, she turned to her friends, students, and local businesses to raise the funds necessary to purchase new pet manikins. Through her efforts and generous donations from the Cleveland Park Animal Hospital, Andrew and Diana Gilbert, Sam and Linda Ross, Gene Johnson, Terri Kiker, Ann Martin, Marc Balsa, and Graham and Katharine Greene, enough funds were raised to purchase two CasPeR the CPR Dog Manikins for the Red Cross; no small feat as the cost for the manikins totaled more than $400.00.

Sue’s career as a pet trainer has spanned nearly two decades and more than 2000 dogs. Some of her training graduates have gone on to become Search and Rescue and Pet Therapy dogs and have made television appearances. Mostly, her trainees have simply become beloved family pets.

Sue exemplifies the high-caliber of volunteer making a difference at the Red Cross and in the community. In addition to being a wife, a mother, and a business owner, she gives of her time ensuring the Upstate is ready when emergencies happen.

Today, We Are All Hokies

It is a phrase of unity heard around the campus, the community, and the world. Students, faculty, staff and alumni are now returning to the campus attempting to make sense of the incomprehensible.

The Drill Field at the heart of the Virginia Tech campus is a place of sacred honor as many memorials to the fallen and injured can be seen. It is a place of great emotion. Tears from friends, and loved ones sprinkle the ground as they remember the horrific events that unfolded here less than one week ago.

The American Red Cross was on the scene less than an hour after the incident offering mental health counseling and spiritual care. Although this is not a natural disaster, to this community and to those who experienced this horrific event it is an emergency with immense impact.

It is a privilege to be on the campus of Virgina Tech to offer hope as part of the American Red Cross response effort. The services available to those in need are numerous. Mental health counseling, spiritual care, transportation for the families of victims, assistance for medical expenses, and even assistance for funeral expenses are some of the services that are offered through the Red Cross.

Soon the students will return to class and resume life on campus as normal...if there can be a normal after an event like this.

As time permits, I will post more on the hope effort in Blacksburg.

Red Cross Responds to Disasters Here

By Bob Hammersla, Chairman of the Board

Recently, I heard the story of Janie Turmon. Janie cares for her mother, brother, sister and three children, some of whom have physical disabilities. She and her family were the victims of a terrible house fire.

"Everything I had worked so hard for went up in flames," she said, "We sat on the curb in front of our burned up house. I cried and cried. We were homeless. ... I had no idea where to go or what to do. What an awful feeling!"

But Janie and her family did not stay on that curb for more than a few minutes, thanks to immediate assistance provided by the Upstate Chapter of the American Red Cross.
As you may know, the Red Cross is not just a single national organization -- there are individual chapters throughout the United States.

Volunteers from the Upstate Red Cross were the ones who showed up at the scene of Janie's home fire. Resources from the Upstate Red Cross enabled them to shelter Janie and her family and see them through their ordeal.
Most of us, however, are totally unaware that the funds to create these resources come only from our community. We are the ones who make it possible for the Red Cross to respond to local disasters.

Our Upstate Red Cross has offices in Greenville, Anderson, Abbeville, Greenwood and Laurens counties. Why? Because it takes a network of volunteers and resources to serve our region, to respond to local disasters and keep us and our neighbors out of harm's way. For the past two years, our Red Cross has responded to an average of one disaster a day locally for an average cost of $1,000 per family.

So far this year, our Red Cross chapter has expended over $225,000 to help more than 798 of our friends and neighbors survive catastrophic events -- mostly single-family house fires -- that don't make the news.

The chapter offers other critical community programs, such as CPR, First Aid, Automated External Defibrillator training, lifeguard training, teaching our toddlers to swim, certifying nurse assistants to qualify them as caregivers and providing emergency communications for the armed forces.

Our local Red Cross touches the lives of 5 percent of the Upstate population. Some of the activities the chapter is involved in are chartered to the Red Cross by the U.S. Congress but not funded in any way by the government.

These programs and services are delivered by a corps of more than 700 volunteers. In fact, the local chapter is so heavily driven by volunteers, they outnumber the paid staff 30 to one. Each volunteer averages 23 hours of training to provide various Red Cross services. These community heroes donate services worth more than one million dollars a year! The chapter could not function without them.

So where does the money come from, then? Most of it comes from us -- from our responses to local fund-raising events and from individual and corporate donations (39 percent). In addition, some program funding does come from United Way (17 percent), grants and course fees.
You and I and every corporation and every citizen in the five Upstate counties benefit from the local Red Cross. It's in all of our interests to support them -- from the smallest company to the largest corporation whose employees might someday need assistance to survive a fire, or a flood, or a tornado.

The American Red Cross is always there when we need it. But what if it wasn't? How would that impact our community? Think of this:
Some 1,500 disaster victims would not receive food, shelter, clothing and other immediate emergency assistance.

More than 17,000 professional, lay rescuers and citizens would no longer be able to provide CPR and First Aid to victims in the community.

Nearly 5,000 lifeguards and children would not learn water safety.

That's why I'm excited to share that Alvin and Wanda McCall are issuing a challenge to our community:

They have pledged $50,000 and are challenging the community to match it between now and April 30 as a way to support this vital community resource.

I encourage you to take this opportunity to get involved with the Red Cross. When you do, remember Janie Turmon. Without the Red Cross, she and her family would have been left with nowhere to turn.