What Is American Red Cross Volunteering

American Red Cross Volunteering is a great way to get involved in your community. I think volunteering is something everyone should do at least once in their life. Volunteering is a great way to give back to your community and the sense of pride you feel afterwards is like no other. There are numerous charity organization with which a person can volunteer. For example, The Salvation Army, The Red Cross, United Way, Meals on Wheels, etc. All charities help with different things. Some help feed and provide for the homeless. Others help with disaster relief. Organizations like The Salvation Army help with providing food and shelter for the homeless. Organizations like The Red Cross help with disaster relief. The Red Cross is one of
the greatest and most well-known charity organizations. If I were to volunteer, I would volunteer with The Red Cross.
The Red Cross deals with disaster relief and helps people in need. Whenever a major disaster occurs, The Red Cross and their numerous volunteers is usually the first of the relief efforts there to help. The American Red Cross’s mission is to prevent human suffering in the face of disasters (American Red Cross). Because of this mission, they are actively involved in any crisis related to weather, natural disaster, and acts of war. They complete any task that helps ease the cost of human suffering which includes preparing shelters, feeding the affected victims and even providing laundry services when a whole town is shut down because of a tornado, flood, or hurricane.
After two very large tornadoes affected Mississippi and Alabama, it became clear to the company Tide that basic daily needs were being met through the Red Cross emergency services, all except laundry. After weeks without power, one of the basic requests was that families had no way to do laundry with what little power they had left. With the loss of the comforts of home or even the local laundromat, Tide created mobile laundry wash stations with the help of the American Red Cross and visited many towns in Alabama that were
affected by these tornadoes. One of the families involved in the use of, and volunteering for, was a friend of my mother's, Rebecca Reed. She was a real estate agent that lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama during the deadly tornado that hit during the spring of 2011; she has since moved back to her hometown of Long Beach Mississippi. After the 2011 tornado, the power was out for weeks and she was having to drive to a friend’s house in Northport to do laundry on the weekend, all while still working and volunteering to help with cleanup in and around her neighborhood that was heavily affected. Being from Long Beach, Rebecca was familiar with the Tide program because they helped during the aftermath of Katrina. They provided free laundry detergent in laundromats all across the coast to towns with power. Rebecca was in a town that had no power for four weeks and they had to drive two hours north to receive laundry services in the weeks following Katrina. After this, and several other disasters around the country, Tide began working with the Red Cross to create these mobile laundry stations. This program launched in Tuscaloosa in May of 2011. Rebecca was so grateful that this service had finally become a reality, she decided to volunteer two days a week helping her neighbors with laundry while they were at work. When faced with a disaster, and people have lost all the comforts of home, even the smallest of daily activities are hard to come by. It is for this reason, The American Red Cross is still helping communities return to normalcy today.
Volunteering for The Red Cross is as easy as signing a piece of paper on most occasions. After disasters, the Red Cross sets up in local communities and volunteers are prepared through small classes depending on the disaster. Here in Tupelo, in 2014, we saw the Red Cross handle volunteers during the cleanup of the tornado that hit the Joyner area and the Elvis Presley lake area. Volunteers were needed for cleanup and no special skills were needed. Liability waivers were the only things that were needed after you filled out a volunteer form. One of the main requirements were that all children under the age of 16 had to have parental supervision and it was advised that children under the age of 10 not participate, since it could potentially be dangerous. Many church groups, including mine, were the ones that helped respond to this disaster in our community.
For other more severe disasters and specialty cases, some training is necessary. In 2003 The American Red Cross partnered with Boys Scouts of America to create a “train the trainer” program to provide health and safety programs to area scouts and their leaders. This is used here in North Mississippi at Camp Yocona, a Boy Scout camp for the Yocona area council of which I am a member. As a boy scout, there are certain requirements and classes that have to be completed to attain merit badges. Many of these requirement classes are provided as a direct result of the Red Cross “train the trainer” program (American Red Cross). My Boy Scout troop participates in these sponsored programs each year during the summer and winter camps. They provide training classes to gain merit badges such as First Aid, Wilderness Survival, and Lifesaving, all of which are needed to reach the rank of Eagle Scout. Volunteering is very beneficial to everyone who participates.
The Red Cross is one of the leading agencies in the U.S. that deals with blood donation. They provide nearly Forty percent of all blood donations to area hospitals and clinics in the community they serve (American Red Cross). Over Four Million healthy adults, ages eighteen and over, donate for the sick and the injured each year. These donations are not needed just in times of disaster, but help throughout the year with routine surgeries and accidents in local hospitals as well. My father donates blood on a regular basis because his blood, A positive, is hard to come by. This is how he and several others are able to volunteer very easily through the Red Cross with very little time and effort.
Volunteering not only has a positive impact on your community, but it also has many benefits.
Studies have shown that volunteering increases overall health (“Benefits of Volunteering”). It helps individuals learn or develop skill sets that can be used to further job opportunities. Volunteering gives a person a sense of pride like no other and teaches people to become humble and respectful of others. While serving in a soup kitchen in Huntsville, I realized just how dependent others are on us for their survival. It was this experience that helped me understand that the people you come in contact with to help will stay with you forever. It is also a great way to stay active in your
community.
Volunteering is something everyone should do at least once in their life. It is one of the greatest experiences that someone can have. It teaches the importance of helping others and makes you realize how good your life is. A lot of people are very privileged and don’t know how bad some people really have it. Volunteering is the best thing a person can do with their free time. Volunteering has made me a better person and has molded me into the person I have become today.