Category Archives: Homepage posts — Featured

Local young Red Crossers wins the Regional International Humanitarian Law Red Cross Youth Action Campaign

Posted on by
Paulina Munoz, lead for the winning team
Photo courtesy of Paulina Munoz.

Story by Richard Payne

Creating a successful campaign focused on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) that is fun, engaging, and educational would seem like a daunting task.  Doing it with a virtual team of high school students who never met face-to-face would seem doubly difficult.  Yet, the winning team in the 2022-2023 Northern California Coastal Region (NCCR) IHL Youth Action Campaign did just that.

In Northern California, 8 teams, comprised of nearly 40 high school students, participated in IHL training.  Each team then developed and delivered IHL awareness campaigns at their schools during the academic year. As a culmination of the campaign, a symposium was held to showcase each team’s work, the struggles they faced and the efforts they took to overcome those challenges. A panel of judges scored each campaign on a series of factors and chose the team that demonstrated the best problem-solving and leadership skills.

Razi Aftab and Paulina Munoz led the winning team, which included students from two of the region’s Red Cross chapters – the North Bay and the Heart of the Valley Chapter, covering Stockton and the surrounding area.  Because the team members lived far apart, they only met virtually in weekly calls.

Paulina believed the bond they formed was one of the team’s greatest strengths. “The best part of the campaign was being able to work as a team throughout the term. We got to know the other team members and felt connected. As a result, we were a lot more productive,” she said/

A screenshot from the Instagram account of the team, showing the activities they planned for the campaign.

In building their campaign, the team members identified that their peers had limited knowledge of the Red Cross or International Humanitarian Law. That’s why the team felt that engaging students had to be their number one priority. 

“Attracting youth to be involved in the campaign was a challenge.  That’s why we focused on having activities that we thought our peers would enjoy as opposed to approaching this campaign from a teaching perspective,” Razi explained.

During the academic year, each team member organized and hosted events at their school around the topic of IHL. The team also created activities and events such as interactive question-based games that tested the advocate’s knowledge on IHL.

“Probably the most distinct event was our escape room,” Razi said. “We had case studies on International Humanitarian Law and asked the advocates to work through those examples. They had to review the scenarios and apply the information they had learned to come up with the best option. We had very good engagement with that!”

In summarizing their personal experiences with the campaign, Razi shared: “Our greatest takeaway was that we were able to foster a sense of community.  The program felt like a group effort rather than an academic exercise. It was voluntary and each person contributed to reaching the end goal of increasing the understanding of International Humanitarian Law.”

Paulina had similar sentiments about this experience: : “A lot of the students who participated in the campaign came into it with no idea what international humanitarian law was about. Through their participation in the campaign, they took away an understanding of IHL and the knowledge that international humanitarian law and services were more available to them than they thought. It was a great way to get them to know their community, the Red Cross, and what we stand for as a society.”

Congratulations to these incredible teams on formulating a thoughtful campaign and for spreading awareness about IHL!

Empowering Young Hearts

Posted on by Leave a comment

Fifth Graders Fundraise for Turkey-Syria Earthquake Relief

By Pooja Klebig

The students in Ms. Mary Horath’s 5th grade class at Gateway School in Santa Cruz were moved to help when they heard about the 7.8 magnitude Turkey-Syria earthquake on February 6, 2023. The quake impacted an area nearly the size of Germany, affecting 14 million people and leaving 1.5 million homeless; nearly 60,000 people lost their lives.

Gateway School students pose with their donation “check,” Red Cross Chapter CEO Michele Averill (center) and teacher Mary Horath (right). Photo by Virginia Becker/American Red Cross

“We were studying about the earthquake in our current events. That’s when we decided to help,” said student Rachel Fisher when asked what motivated the class to help.

The students held a school-wide walk-a-thon to raise money for disaster relief and response efforts. They went door-to-door to collect pledges, put up posters, and encouraged their classmates to participate. They even bought, sliced, and passed out orange slices to the walk-a-thon participants. All of their hard work paid off: They raised more than $15,000, which they were eager to donate to the American Red Cross.

Michele Averill, CEO of the Central Coast Chapter of the Red Cross, and Violet Nguyen, Regional Red Cross Philanthropy Officer, had the pleasure of accepting this generous gift through a check presentation at the school earlier this month.

Smiles all around for disaster relief! Photo by Virginia Becker/American Red Cross

“The joy in these kids’ hearts was simply overwhelming and inspiring,” said Michele. “Hearing their motivation of why they created the fundraiser and walk-a-thon filled my heart.”

The journey to recovery continues in Turkey and Syria for the millions affected by one of the biggest disasters to impact the region in years. Turkish Red Crescent and Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers continue to provide people with food, clean water and essential hygiene and relief supplies. As a response of this magnitude requires a team effort, National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies from around the world continue to provide aid, including the American Red Cross. Earlier this year, two U.S. disaster responders were deployed to the relief efforts, specializing in communications and information management; the organization continues to assess ongoing needs.

The Red Cross and Red Crescent will continue earthquake recovery efforts in the months and years to come thanks to volunteers and the generosity of donors just like the Gateway School students. We are very grateful for their hard work to raise vital funds to support these relief efforts by engaging our local community and making a difference worldwide.  These young humanitarians are an inspiration to us all. On behalf of those we serve, thank you Gateway School for your compassion and philanthropic spirit!

Getting Blood to Babies in Need

Posted on by
By Alex Keilty, American Red Cross volunteer

Across the top of the box is a typed address label for a local hospital and a simple handwritten note: “Pediatric Order.” Down the side is the American Red Cross logo and the words “Human Blood.”

Volunteer Claudia Langley loads the white box into the trunk of a Red Cross van, along with the rest of the boxes packed with blood products she is delivering to four hospitals today.

As she starts the engine and types the address of the hospital into the GPS on her cell phone she says, “The sad part is there are not enough donations.”

It’s true, she’s right. Certain kinds of blood are rarer than others. For example, this pediatric order she is carrying today – blood destined for babies – must be screened for a flu-like virus called CMV that is very common and mild in adults but can be fatal to infants. Only about 15 percent of American adults have not been exposed to CMV and therefore are able to donate to newborns. Plus, blood products have a limited shelf life so there is always a need for more donations to replenish the supply.

But today, there is blood available for a tiny patient in MarinHealth Medical Center, thanks to blood donors and volunteers like Claudia, a blood transportation specialist.

Retired from a career in art direction and graphic design, Claudia has been doing this role for the Red Cross for 2.5 years. To get trained, she completed a course online and then shadowed a fellow volunteer until she felt comfortable going alone. Now she does a four-hour shift once a week by herself.

As she drives across the Richmond Bridge over San Francisco Bay she plays music on the radio – “anything but country” – and explains how her volunteer role gives her faith in the good in others.

“It makes me feel better about people in general. You run across people who are trying to help,” she says.

Half an hour after setting off from the Red Cross Oakland Blood Center, she pulls up to the front of the hospital, stacks some of the Red Cross boxes on a cart and rolls them to the lab. Clinical laboratory scientists will match the blood types of the donated blood to patients’ blood types and then give it to the doctors and nurses who are treating the babies and other patients awaiting these blood products.

Everyone she interacts with mentions how grateful they are for her efforts, including Red Cross staff, laboratory staff and even strangers in the hospital.

“Sometimes random people walk by and say thank you for doing this,” she says.

Claudia has encouraged friends and acquaintances to begin volunteering as Red Cross blood transportation specialists because of how positive her experience has been.

“It’s not strenuous or super challenging, but it’s something you can do that’s helpful,” she says. “I am thrilled with the way they treat me and the way they are organized for the drivers and deliveries.”

From Marin she will do deliveries to hospitals in Richmond, Alameda and then back to Oakland where she will hand in the keys to the van and head home before traffic gets busy.

She describes her role as “getting the blood to where it needs to be” and today she definitely delivered blood to where it needed to be: to a tiny patient waiting in hospital for life-saving treatment.

The Red Cross relies on volunteers like Claudia to ensure patients have lifesaving blood products when they need them – and more volunteers are needed. Learn more and submit a volunteer application at redcross.org/volunteertoday.

Red Cross and community help RV park residents recover from flood waters

Posted on by

Even before an American Red Cross emergency response vehicle dropped off 100 meals at the Mission Farm RV Park in San Juan Bautista on March 21, eager residents lined up for lunch, happy to get some fuel for the difficult job of trying to clean up the damage done by flooding to their community 11 days earlier. 

Mission Farm RV Park homeowner, Kerry Dickie, thanks American Red Cross volunteers for the cleanup kits and food delivered to his neighbors. Photo by Jaka Vinsek/American Red Cross

Kerry Dickie was among them. Dickie said he lost his mobile home and about 70 percent of his possessions to the flooding and mud that followed. Dickie said that even before waters from several adjacent creeks and a nearby subdivision’s retention pond started pouring into the park, he and his son found their way out was blocked by flooded streets strewn with large underwater rocks.  

As water started to come in, the two tried to move his collections from an enclosed porch into his 1986 Avion mobile home. By the time they got everything into the mobile home, water was knee high.  

The two took one of their vehicles to dry land but by the time they came back to move the other, water had already crept inside the mobile home.  

While the water receded within about 24 hours, when Dickie returned home, he found 1.5 feet of standing water inside. The enclosed porch was totaled as is his mobile home.  

“It’s just a horrible muddy mess,” Dickie said.  

Red Cross volunteer Roberta Jones and Leslie Jordan, mayor of San Juan Bautista, unload meals for residents of the Mission Farm RV Park. Photo by Barbara Wood/American Red Cross

“I’m kind of wondering what my next house is going to look like because this one’s not habitable any more,” Dickie said. He said he will probably look for a used mobile home to replace the one destroyed by the water.  

He’s not one to take handouts, Dickie said, but “when you need help, you need help.”  

Residents of the park have been helping each other recover from the flooding, which affected some of the recreational vehicles more than others. Kurt Kurasaki, whose father built the park in the 70s, says he tried to come out to assess the storm damage on March 10th, but couldn’t get through the flooded roads. When he trudged in through the water he saw the berm he had built to raise the heights of a nearby creek bed by a foot was about to be overtopped. Kurasaki started going door to door telling residents of the 70 recreational vehicles and mobile homes on the property to evacuate.  

Kerry Dickie thanks Red Cross volunteers Mary Marcus and Hideaki Yamazaki for the cleanup kits. Photo by Jaka Vinsek/American Red Cross

Not everyone left. Some people were at work, Kurasaki says, some “opted to ride it out” and some didn’t have a vehicle to get out with.  

Kurasaki said the park had flooded once before, but it was two decades ago.  

Now, those who had less damage are helping those with more damage to remove their trashed belongings.  

Leslie Jordan, the mayor of San Juan Bautista, and other volunteers came in Tuesday and Wednesday to help serve the food and promised to come back as long as the deliveries lasted. Earlier in the week, more San Juan Bautista residents came out for a work party to help their flooded neighbors.  

“This is our community,” Jordan said. 

When Home is a Parking Lot 

Posted on by
Red Cross Volunteers Bring Hot Meals to RV Campers  
Dave Martin gets hot meals from Red Cross volunteers. Photo by Marcia Antipa/American Red Cross


“They tell you to get out and that’s it.” 

Dave Martin and a few dozen other RV Campers have sought refuge in a rain-drenched parking lot in Hollister during the recent California storms.  All of them were forced to evacuate RV campgrounds in the area when the floodwaters rose and threatened to swamp their vehicles. 

Robin Lewis also brought his camper to this lot after a harrowing few days seeking a safe haven. 

“We stayed by the side of the road for a few days, went to another place, came here, and we’re worried about where we’re going to head to next.” 

Mario Garcia at the Red Cross response vehicle. Photo by Marcia Antipa

Then, the American Red Cross arrived with hot food and two friendly faces:  volunteers Roberta Jones of Silver Creek, Washington, and Felix Rodriguez of Madera, California.  The two dished out meals, snacks and bottled water from inside an Emergency Response Vehicle.   

“It’s great,” said Robin Lewis after picking up a few meals. “There’s a need for help here, not just us, there’s a lot of people. We’re way better off than a lot of people, for sure.” 

Red Cross volunteer Roberta Jones. Photo by Marcia Antipa

Camper Mario Garcia accepted his meals with a big smile, and brought food to another camper, who he said was too shy to accept food. Mario says he makes the most of what could be a dreary experience. He even plans to attend a “Learn to Salsa Dance” event at a Hollister dance club. 

Volunteers Roberta Jones and Felix Rodriguez get a little choked up when asked why they volunteer with the Red Cross during a disaster. The reason, Jones says, is simple. 

“The people. Everyone is so grateful, and that’s why I do this, because they are just so grateful. Don’t make me cry,” she says, laughing. 

The Red Cross needs more volunteers like Roberta and Felix. If you would like to help, please visit redcross.org/volunteer. 

Volunteering for the Red Cross: a life-changing experience

Posted on by

Volunteers from all over the country are working together, providing food, shelter and relief supplies to those affected by severe weather across California. Many are experienced volunteers and have deployed several times. But some joined the Red Cross not so long ago and are on their first deployment. This experience can be both challenging and  life-changing, and it’s a great opportunity to find mentorship and build camaraderie. 

Here are some of their stories: 

Photo by Barbara Wood / American Red Cross

Kevin Wiramihardja: “I want to make the world better” 
 
Kevin Wiramihardja started volunteering for the American Red Cross in Boston in January, but by mid-March he had already found himself in California, ready to go to work in a shelter for those displaced by the series of storms that have been slamming the state.   
 
As he waited to be assigned to a shelter Kevin, who is in his 30’s, explained his real passion is to try to figure out how organizations and businesses can improve their communications.  To that end, he has taken a year off work to research and volunteer for the Red Cross. He is signed up as a “volunteer services feedback specialist,” trying to help the Boston chapter with things like volunteer surveys and what is done with the information gathered.   

To help him in that work, Kevin said he wants to learn as much about the Red Cross as he can, taking classes and working as a local responder to home fires, as well as volunteering to work 12-hour shifts in a shelter.  “I want to make the world better,” he said.   

On Wednesday, Kevin was hard at work on his second day of working in the Seven Trees Community Center shelter in San Jose. He said he appreciated that shelter manager Patrick McKenna is a good supervisor and “answers all my questions. I am grateful for that.”

So far, Kevin said, he found the work a “very life-changing experience.”   


Aidin, Juana and Cody: Help comes from the heart 

Photo by Barbara Wood / American Red Cross

Aidin Shahi is a true believer in the mission of the Red Cross. He isn’t yet 40, but he’s been a Red Cross volunteer for 19 years, at first as part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent in his native Iran and for the past 10 years as part of the American Red Cross. 
 
Aidin, a resident of the Winnetka neighborhood of Los Angeles, is one of over a dozen Red Cross volunteers helping Monterey County in the evacuation shelter at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville. That number of volunteers has swelled since Aidin arrived because he’s signed up at least four new Red Cross volunteers in less than four days at the shelter.   

Aiden helped those who told him they’d like to join the Red Cross by shepherding them through the process online. “I cannot help everyone in the entire world, but I can help the people in need,” Aidin says.  “The best organization for helping people in need is the Red Cross. And it’s free and it comes heart to heart.”   

At least two of the volunteers Aiden helped sign up are already hard at work helping the residents of the shelter. Juana Uribe, a Watsonville resident who speaks fluent Spanish as well as English, helped serve food, clean up and whatever else was needed until the Shelter Resident Transition team asked her to help translate for Spanish speaking shelter residents the team is helping to figure out what they’ll do once they leave the shelter.   

Juana, a former office manager for a church who is currently looking for a new job, says she asked Aiden about joining the Red Cross because “I like the labor the Red Cross does.”   

“I love customer service,” she said. “I love to help people and bring hope to someone, even with a friendly face. Sometimes a child needs someone to approach them and smile at them. I just like to help those in need.”  

A second new volunteer, Cody Mortensen, has a unique perspective because he is staying in the evacuation shelter after the tent he had been living in was destroyed in the storm. The bar/restaurant he works at has also been shut down because of storm damage. Cody has helped with everything in the shelter from emptying garbage to setting up cots and serving food to the residents.   

Lucy Aita, a new volunteer that is ‘all in’ 

Photo by Barbara Wood / American Red Cross

American Red Cross volunteer Lucy Aita says she will never forget helping the family of a 93-year-old Florida woman who hadn’t been heard from for two weeks following Hurricane Ian last year. Lucy, a resident of Monroe, New Jersey, and fellow members of the Red Cross reunification team found the woman at her home, but without electricity or a working phone. The Red Crossers lent her a phone and helped her make calls. “We stayed with her for three hours while she called people,” Lucy said. The woman’s friends and relatives “were in tears on the phone. They thought she was gone,” Lucy said. “That was very touching.”   

Lucy, who has been a Red Cross volunteer for only 11 months, is currently on her fifth national deployment, working in an evacuation shelter in California helping those affected by the current series of storms slamming the state. She is trained to help with sheltering, feeding, and driving a Red Cross emergency response vehicle as well as reunification. At home, Lucy heads up the local teams who respond to home fires, and in her region, she oversees feeding.   

“I wanted to join the Red Cross since I was a teenager,” Lucy said.  But busy with life, school and as an only child with older parents who needed her help, Lucy put it off until after her mother passed away at the age of 97. Covid and health problems delayed Lucy for a bit longer, but last year she was finally able to realize her teen dream. “That was it – I was in there full time,” she said.   

« Older Entries Recent Entries »