Red Cross looking for a few good volunteers
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 01:29 p.m., April 21, 2008
Updated 01:29 p.m., April 21, 2008
The Lyon County chapter of the American Red Cross and new Director of Services Liliana Heredia-Taylor are badly in need of volunteers — not only people who can be trained to respond to an emergency, but people who can show others how to be prepared before disaster ever strikes.
Heredia-Taylor, who came to Emporia from Arkansas in February, has about five volunteers now. She says there’s no limit to how many she could use.
“Our organization works and is driven by volunteers,” she said. “Everything that we do, it’s augmented by volunteers. Yes, we have pay staff, but most of the pay staff is devoted to the administrational work, the paper-shuffling. But the actual ... assistance, the fire response, the emergency response, we rely heavily on the assistants and the volunteers from the community.”
Training for emergency response and emergency preparedness is free. Emergency response involves providing food, clothing or shelter to people who have been affected by such acts of nature as fires, tornados and floods.
“After awhile, you become so attuned to it that you don’t even realize that you’re on call,” Heredia-Taylor said. “Luckily, we’re not a very busy (office) as far as responding. ... So it’s not as if you’re in places like Los Angeles, (where) every night you have four, five or six fires a night. Here, we only have one, maybe two a week, a month, but they still need to be responded to. People still need to know that the community cares for them.”
The emergency preparedness side of the organization involves showing both families and workplaces how to have a built-in plan for disasters. Heredia-Taylor said the organization will come to a family’s house, if the family wants, to show them how to be prepared. Or the family can come to the Red Cross office to receive the training, or a volunteer can meet the family somewhere else, such as at a coffee shop.
Heredia-Taylor said many people don’t realize how broad the Red Cross’s services are. In addition to emergency response and preparedness training, she said, it also performs international services, such as reuniting family members who have been pulled apart by political separations, and military services, including helping servicemen and women who are in financial binds while actively serving. Volunteers will be trained to handle those types of services, too.
“Say your great-grandmother was in Germany during the Holocaust, and you want to find out, just (as) closure, to know where she was and where she ended up being buried,” she said. “We will help the family find her. We have the repositories in Germany ... and we can look.”
Another thing many people don’t realize, Heredia-Taylor said, is that the Red Cross receives no funding from the government. The organization relies on donations from the public.
“Sometimes we struggle ... this is a one-person office,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons, because we don’t have enough funds to put two or three people in this office. Someday ... in the future, we (may) get so busy that we may need to. Right now, my goal is to be able to go out into the community and make them aware of the Red Cross, teach as much as I can.”
To inquire about volunteering for the Red Cross, or to make a donation, contact Heredia-Taylor at 342-4211 or stop by the Red Cross office at 904 E. Sixth Ave.
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