Your Red Cross Update

“What you guys are doing, you reassure us that people are out there and care.” 

Lucie Tison and her husband Tom have lived in the Contempo Marin Mobile Home Park in San Rafael for 17 years. On a recent Saturday morning, teams of volunteers from the Red Cross fanned out across this community of 400 homes to install free smoke alarms for residents. This Sound the Alarm event is part of the Red Cross Home Fire Campaign, a national program designed to save lives from home fires through installation of free smoke alarms and fire safety education. 

As of August 23^rd, the Red Cross announced that since the start of the Home Fire Campaign in October of 2014, volunteers have installed more than 2.5 million free smoke alarms with almost 2,000 documented lives saved thanks to those smoke alarms and fire safety education. 

The Red Cross is known for its humanitarian response to disasters like wildfires, hurricanes and floods. But the most frequent disaster in the United States is a home fire. In fact, homes fires claim seven lives every day in this country, but working smoke alarms can cut the risk of death by half. 

Retired firefighter Kathy Baker of San Anselmo is one of the Red Cross volunteers who donated her time at Contempo Marin. She firmly believes that smoke alarms save lives.  

“When I was with the Fire Department, we would go to peoples’ homes and install smoke detectors or replace their batteries,” said Kathy. “I think that if we can do a step to save somebody’s life, then this is great.” 

Baker teamed up with fellow Red Cross volunteer Doug Koefoed of San Francisco. Doug checked and installed smoke alarms in each home, while Kathy acted as “educator,” speaking with residents about how to keep their home safe from home fires. That include creating a family escape plan in case of fire, having two exits from each room, and testing smoke alarms once a year. 

Baker says it was her experience as a firefighter that led her to volunteer with the Red Cross. 

“We’d be fighting fires, saving homes. These people had nothing. They fled with nothing. I saw this as a firefighter, and I still see it as a Red Cross responder. I think it’s just in my blood.” 

The Home Fire Campaign prioritizes its outreach to communities where residents are more likely to experience home fires. Local Red Cross chapters work with community partners, including fire departments, to determine where help is needed most. This includes people most at risk, such as those with disabilities and older adults. 

At the Contempo Marin Mobile Home Park Sound the Alarm event on August 19, Red Cross volunteers installed 107 smoke alarms in 44 homes and gave home safety information to 115 residents. 

Tom and Lucie Tison told volunteers that they are grateful for the help to keep their home safe. 

“I think it’s a wonderful reassurance that people care,” said Lucie. “We could look at the news and can say nobody cares and then comes someone like you who is in the Red Cross who does great things.” 

Anyone interested in having free smoke alarms installed in their home is encouraged to contact their local Red Cross office or visit SoundTheAlarm.org/NCCR. If you would like to help with the Sound the Alarm campaign or learn about other volunteer opportunities with the Red Cross, visit redcross.org/volunteer. 

Photos from the event can be found here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjASQZJ