Businesses in downtown San Francisco were closed due to the power outage
By Veronica Oberholzer
I love the Christmas season and am always looking for new holiday activities. On Saturday, December 20, I took BART from my home in Oakland to the Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco to see a 2 p.m. Christmas Ballet.
The theater was a dark cocoon from the outside world during the beautiful performance. In a funny piece of foreshadowing, I thought that anything could be happening in the world outside, and we wouldn’t know about it until the show was over.
Hans Cardenas (right) and Hanna Malak -Regional CEO- at a Sound the Alarm Event
Hans Cardenas is a man on a mission: he aims to make 100 homes safer by installing free smoke alarms with the American Red Cross Sound the Alarm program. And he is more than halfway there already!
Sound the Alarm is part of the national Red Cross Home Fire Campaign, which aims to reduce the number of deaths from home fires. This campaign has helped save 2,063 lives since its launch in October 2014. Here in the Northern California Coastal Region, volunteers and partners have installed more than 48,500 free smoke alarms and made more than 18,000 households safer since 2014.
“I’ve made 57 homes safer since I started on May 14, 2020. Working with different teams, we installed 171 alarms,” he detailed.
Hans’ journey with the Red Cross started in 2020 as a Senior Philanthropy Officer with the Regional Fund Development Team. He spent two years facilitating financial donations from individuals across the Northern California Coastal Region. Through his role, he forged connections with donors, aligning their priorities with the Red Cross mission, which includes disaster relief, blood donation and community support. As of December 2023, he transitioned to a similar position with the San Francisco Opera. Despite his busy schedule, he still finds time to install free smoke alarms with his fellow Red Crossers, visiting communities at risk for home fires across the region. “We, the fundraisers, are very goal oriented. I was just being audacious by choosing such (a) number, but also trying to stay engaged with something I really enjoy doing,” he explained.
Photo Courtesy of Connor Siu, Yesha Sacatani, and Monisha Raju
Every individual grows up in a different community–the Red Cross, as a global organization, encompasses so many stories from these divergent backgrounds. Being able to give back to their communities and make an impact is a great gift for volunteers. That’s why so many youth have resonated with the American Red Cross to serve as members of the Youth Executive Board (YEB), like Connor Siu, Yesha Sacatani, and Monisha Raju from North Bay and Heart of the Valley Chapters (NBC/HOV). The variety of ways in which these youth volunteers have been influenced by their communities is what inspires their distinctive journey:
Our Disaster Cycle Services Team and the and Heart of the Valley Chapter Leadership celebrating Nancy and her dedication to the Red Cross Mission.
Nancy Reeves is retiring as a Red Cross volunteer after 17 years, and everyone in the Heart of the Valley Chapter and Northern California Coastal region will deeply miss her.
Her journey with the Red Cross started in 2007 when she joined the Disaster Action Team in Stanislaus County. She was a dedicated volunteer. Her colleagues often say that Nancy is “always there when the Red Cross calls.”
She fulfilled several roles over the years, displaying solid professionalism in each opportunity. She was a Disaster Action Team (DAT) Supervisor, Duty Officer, Disaster Responder, and Disaster Services Chair. She was also a remarkable trainer and mentor for new DAT volunteers, always happy to share her extensive knowledge and experience with them.
Red Cross Free Smoke Alarms Alert Marin County Family During House Fire
“I said, ‘A fire! A fire! Let’s get out. Everybody get out!’”
The Monthier family home the night of Sept. 3, 2023.
Marie Monthier will never forget what happened in the early morning hours of September 3, 2023. She and her extended family of two older adults, two adult children and two small grandchildren were asleep in their mobile home in Marin County, California. Marie got up to use the restroom and heard smoke alarms blaring. That’s when she saw a fire behind the kitchen stove and alerted her family to evacuate.
Marie’s son, David Mardy, had just moved into his own apartment in Marin County. When his mother called him after everyone got out of the house safely, David rushed over and found the home in ruins and his family in shock.
“The whole family was on the street, standing, looking at the house burning down. My mom said, ‘Look at my house!’ Tears started coming out of my eyes,” David said.
As an American Red Cross volunteer since 2010, Roxanne Anderson has deployed to more than 35 disasters across the continental United States and several island deployments including the islands of Guam in June 2023 and the American Virgin Islands in 2017. She is one of those special volunteers who has, “been there, done that.”
Roxanne has held a wide variety of jobs in her 35+ deployments, including in Georgia following a tornado in May 2011. Photo courtesy Roxanne Anderson
Roxanne, who lives in San Jose, joined the Red Cross after spending 30 years as a California Highway Patrol officer. She’s done a wide array of Red Cross roles, including disaster response feeding, sheltering, managing logistics, driving an emergency response vehicle (ERV), supply and transportation.
States she has been sent to, in addition to her home state of California, include Illinois, Georgia, Missouri, Connecticut, Colorado, Arizona, New Jersey, Washington, North Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, US Virgin Island, Oklahoma, Florida and Guam. She has responded to floods, hurricanes, wildfires, a gas pipeline explosion and multi-structure fires, tornadoes and mass shootings.
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