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FORT HOOD, Texas - National Red Cross Month has been celebrated since March 1943 to recognize all of the selfless volunteers for their many contributions in helping others through disasters.
The Red Cross Center on Fort Hood, located at the historic Reynolds House, held an open house March 1 to welcome new volunteers.
“The volunteers really are the strength and the foundation of the Red Cross,” said LaNette Palmer, the Assistant Station Manager for the Fort Hood Red Cross Center. “We would not be able to do any of the things we do if it were not for the great volunteers we have.”
Many people have differing reasons as to why they chose to volunteer, but no matter the reasons, they all genuinely want to help others in need, Palmer said.
“The Red Cross is an organization that you can count on,” said Misti Field, a new volunteer for the Red Cross. “If you have a spouse or a
parent who is deployed, you can contact the Red Cross to possibly find out where they are, and find out if they are OK.”
Field, one of the new Red Cross volunteers, found out last year that she was diagnosed with several different types of cancer while her husband was deployed and went through the Red Cross to get the message out to her husband.
“I chose to volunteer because the Red Cross played an instrumental part in my life last year, when they got the message to my husband’s command, who then allowed my husband to come back early from deployment after we found out that I was diagnosed with cancer,” Field said.
“The Red Cross did everything they could to bring him home as quickly and safely as possible,” she said. “We just found out two weeks ago that I am officially cancer-free.”
The Red Cross is always looking for new volunteers, as the volunteers are the ones who make the Red Cross as efficient and versatile as it is today, Field said.
“I chose to volunteer because I am a ‘people person.’ I like to help people, and I was raised in a ‘do to others as you would have them do to you,’” Field said.
The American Red Cross has a rich extensive history dating all the way back to May 21, 1881, when Clara Barton and associates formally founded it in Washington, D.C.
The Fort Hood office has been holding activities and events throughout the month in an effort to recruit new volunteers and educate people on a variety of different topics including basic first aid.
“As a leader, knowing that there is an agency there to facilitate the communication and the process of getting a Soldier who has an emergency back home,” said Capt. Jamie Cook, a new Red Cross volunteer, “I think is a good enough reason why we as Soldiers should support the Red Cross however we can.”
Orientations have been held for potential volunteers throughout the month.
Being a volunteer for the Red Cross is 100 percent about looking outside of yourself and assisting and supporting other people that may be in need when you have the ability to do so, Cook said.
There have been several classes with educational value held throughout the month, with the purpose of teaching people basic first-aid procedures, how to identify pathogens, Red Cross history, proper techniques in babysitting and other classes.
The Red Cross office here on Fort Hood has classes and programs available for a variety of ages – there are teenagers who volunteer their time and effort just as the adults do, and there are even classes on basic first aid held for young children in grades 3-5, Palmer said.
On average, the Red Cross responds to approximately 200 disasters nationwide every day, and provides blood and blood products to approximately 3,000 hospitals and transfusion centers across the country.
The Red Cross has a big impact on the wounded warriors coming back home from deployment with anything from blood donations they may need, to just providing someone to be there for that Soldier so that they are not alone, Cook said.
After World War II, the Red Cross focused more on its blood donation programs introducing the nationwide civilian blood program that is responsible for supplying 40 percent of the blood and blood products in the United States.
“The Red Cross had a lot to do with me even joining the military in the first place,” Cook said. “Growing up in South Carolina we, as a Family, lost everything twice – once to a fire and two years later to a tornado.”
In those moments of disaster when someone may just feel like giving up and that all hope is lost, to be there to help them, and see the difference you are making in this stranger’s life for the better, makes it all that much more gratifying, Cook said.
The American Red Cross has played a key role in helping, saving, serving, sheltering, feeding and assisting victims of disasters and supporting military service members in the Armed Forces and their Family members since the first World War.
“I clearly remember it was the Red Cross that responded and provided us with bedding, food and just supporting our Family and our community through that whole process,” Cook said.
The Fort Hood office has been holding activities and events throughout the month in an effort to recruit new volunteers and educate people on a variety of different topics including basic first aid.
There have been various events held during the month, for recruiting, education and training purposes.
And there are many more activities scheduled to be held throughout the rest of the month.
Orientations have been held for potential volunteers throughout the month.
The Fort Hood Red Cross Center will continue to hold new-volunteer orientations and educational classes throughout the month in their main office, located at the historic Reynolds House next to the Warrior Way Commissary.
For more information on what you can do to help the Red Cross, or for those interested in signing themselves or a child up for the various classes offered by the Red Cross here on Fort Hood, call the Fort Hood Red Cross Main office at 287-0400 or you can visit the Main Office and request a calendar of events for the rest of the month.
| Date Taken: | 03.18.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 03.21.2013 15:40 |
| Story ID: | 103871 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 74 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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