The American Red Cross – Utilizing Volunteer During Crisis

In the past year, the American Red Cross Serving Greater Iowa responded to 437 disaster incidents across 80 counties in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota (mostly home fires), where 1,629 individuals were assisted by Red Cross volunteers. That’s over 4 people being helped every day!

Here in the Eastern Iowa Area, 820 trained volunteers provided 613 individuals with food, shelter, clothing, medical necessities and emotional support after 162 incidents.

In order to provide these services, volunteers are trained and registered with the Red Cross for disaster assignments, responding primarily to local disasters within our communities such as home fires and floods. In addition, many of our disaster volunteers also traveled to other parts of the nation to help with large-scale disasters such as the recent flooding and tornados in the Midwest and the wildfires in Colorado.

We not only teach people of all ages how to prevent and prepare for natural and man-made disasters, such as fires, floods, tornadoes, heat waves and winter storms. Last year, over 25,600 individuals learned CPR, First Aid, took AED training, learned to swim or took Ready Rating training.

The American Red Cross is a member agency of the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley. The VCCV works with the American Red Cross to secure volunteers in the Cedar Valley. The Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley has 120 member agencies with nearly 200 volunteer opportunities. To get involved with the American Red Cross call the VCCV at 272-2087 or visit www.vccv.org.