Author Archives: redcrossnorcalstaff

The Black Cloud: A Pajaro Resident’s Story of When the Levees Broke

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Red Crossers surveyed the widespread flooding that left Pajaro underwater, including Joanne’s home (pictured in the distance between the volunteers).

Written by: Jillian Robertson | Senior Manager, Long-Term Recovery Communications, American Red Cross

“People were caught off guard. It was 1 a.m. The levees were breaking, and we were told, ‘You’ve got to go!’ It was very traumatic.”

Joanne Jackson lived with her husband and her daughter in their home in Pajaro, California, before catastrophic floods forced them from their home two years ago, in December 2022.

For Joanne and her husband, they were lucky. The day before, the sheriff had warned them to evacuate. They left in their travel trailer where they’re still living today, as they work on repairs to their home that was rendered uninhabitable by the floods.

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Beyond the Desk: My Red Cross Transformation

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by Kelsey Marasigan

Photo courtesy of Kelsey Marasigan

In my weekly one-on-one meetings with my supervisor, the question of professional development often arises. Usually, I’d offer a standard answer, something about improving my Excel skills or taking a project management course. Honestly, I hadn’t given it much serious thought. That is, until I said “yes” to a deployment opportunity to help with the disaster response operation for the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. It was then I realized the Red Cross offers growth opportunities far beyond what I could imagine – opportunities for profound personal and professional development.

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Deloitte Brainstorms Business Solutions for the Red Cross during its Impact Day

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Photo courtesy of Deloitte

By Alex Keilty

Many Bay Area organizations are making community service part of their annual plan by giving staff paid time to volunteer or organizing events that benefit a cause close to their employees’ hearts.

Deloitte, a professional services organization and longtime supporter of the American Red Cross, hosts an annual in-house “Impact Day”. Impact Day is Deloitte’s national annual day of service in the US, an opportunity for professionals to come together and engage in social impact efforts that reflect Deloitte’s purpose commitments to help create positive change for ourselves, each other and our community, and—together—drive progress toward a more equitable and sustainable future for all.

On Friday June 7th, Deloitte professionals, nonprofit relationships, and communities connected in over 1,200 social impact projects across more than 100 US cities to drive social and economic prosperity in the communities where they live and work. This year’s Impact Day took a unique approach when Deloitte’s local staff was asked to troubleshoot a real issue: the difficulty of recruiting and retaining volunteers to transport donated blood to hospitals in the San Francisco area.

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A Twice In A Lifetime Experience: Reflections On Briana’s Most Unique Deployment

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By Julia Maniccia

Photos courtesy of Briana Taylor

“We are so focused on responding and getting a job done, but that isn’t how you touch peoples’ lives. You do that by listening to them, talking to them, letting them tell their story and finding out what they need. Then you help them,” is a sentiment that has guided Briana Taylor, first by a career in psychology, and later by two decades of service with the American Red Cross.

Briana’s introduction to disaster response was happenstance. In her professional role in mental health, Briana had spent many years working to alleviate human suffering on an individual level, tending to the needs of her patients in their darkest hour. In 2004, Briana was vacationing in Phuket, Thailand with her family, briefly taking off her psychologist hat, when a tsunami took to the island’s shores. Six weeks later, her drive to alleviate suffering took flight on the community-level, as she returned to Thailand to support islanders in their recovery.

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“Two-For-One Special” 

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Recognizing Susan Winters, Heart of the Valley Chapter’s Clara Barton Award Winner 

By Selena Nisha

Photo courtesy of Susan Winters

After retiring from a career as a speech therapist and school secretary, Susan Winters from Modesto, California found herself searching for new ways to stay engaged in her community. Susan has always believed in the importance of giving back. Her parents were active in community service and instilled in her the values of volunteerism and compassion towards others. This passion for service led her to the American Red Cross in 2010, and her contribution to the organization was recently recognized with the Clara Barton Award for Meritorious Leadership. Named after the founder of the Red Cross, the award recognizes a volunteer for their years of service in various leadership positions.  

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This One Felt Different

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A Red Cross volunteer shares what the Loma Prieta earthquake – and the hours that followed – were like from the Red Cross office in San Jose.
A Red Cross worker surveys the damage caused by the Lomo Prieta earthquake in the Santa Cruz area.

By Franci Collins, Red Cross Volunteer

I will always remember where I was at 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989. I had just walked into the San Jose Chapter of the Red Cross. Coincidentally, I was scheduled to teach an earthquake preparedness class that night, the first in several months as classes were often cancelled due to lack of enrollment. I wanted to get there before 5 p.m. to make sure all the equipment was available and working.

The slide projector was on a table right inside the classroom door and I had just turned it on and off when the ground started shaking. I am happy to say that my six years of training paid off, as I immediately ducked under the table and held on. The shaking seemed to go on for an extremely long time and I spent most of it imagining the slide projector being progressively shaken towards the edge of the table. I had time to decide that if it fell off, I would stay where I was and not try to save it.

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