Category Archives: Homepage Posts — Other

Red Cross Volunteer Brought Hope and Housing Help to LA Fire Survivors and Others 

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A Red Crosser surveys damage caused by fires in LA 

What happens when you have nowhere to go after a disaster? What if your neighborhood is destroyed, or your home is no longer safe? For those affected by the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles, Calif., the American Red Cross was there to supply safe shelter, food, relief supplies, financial assistance, comfort and a specific service that only Sue Trautman and her team can provide. 

Sue, a Red Cross Northern California Coastal Region volunteer, arrived in LA about a week after the fires devastated communities across the city. She set up shop in the Red Cross offices downtown and got right to work. Sue served on the Shelter Resident Transition Team — a group of volunteers that helps evacuees in shelters create a plan to move into more stable long-term housing. 

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“A Very Different Beast”: Red Cross Volunteer Recalls the Devastation of Los Angeles Wildfires 

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It had been a children’s playground in Altadena, Calif. Now, a melted toy sat upon a melted jungle gym. Scraps of canopy were whipping in the wind. Now, it was just burned wreckage in the wake of the wildfire. Dave Crocker remembers it clearly almost a year later. “It stopped me short,” he says. 

He was in Los Angeles —the place where he was born, had grown up and gone to college. Where wildfires were a fact of life. Dave is an American Red Cross volunteer who has seen the aftermath of numerous wildfires first-hand. But this fire: it had been unusual. 

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Investing in Preparedness: Inside the CAP Bus Tour 

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When torrential rain opened over California in the winter of 2023, few could have imagined the devastation that would follow. Fueled by rare atmospheric rivers, communities were flooded with destruction like they had never seen before. Among them was Pajaro, a small Monterey County town, where homes and livelihoods were destroyed.  

While this disaster did leave behind broken levees, it also ignited a new vision for preparedness, particularly in vulnerable communities where disasters repeatedly hit the hardest.  

That realization quickly became the impetus to launch the 18th Red Cross Community Adaptation Program (CAP) across the country out of Monterey County. This is an innovative Red Cross initiative designed to strengthen local partner networks in disaster-prone areas, ensuring families have the tools and support they need before the next emergency strikes. 

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Lyra Kelly: Just Trying to be Helpful through the American Red Cross 

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Lyra Kelly demonstrates the versatile ways volunteers can help people following a disaster. Although she has management experience, here she is driving a forklift in order to get supplies delivered to families in need. (Photo courtesy of Lyra Kelly) 

I first met Lyra Kelly when we were both deployed (aka sent out to a disaster response operation) to help people severely affected by the Spring 2025 tornadoes in St. Louis. Well-organized and skilled in the proprietary programs of the American Red Cross, she was the Operations Management Supervisor, responsible for organizing all of us volunteers—some of whom were supporting people in shelters, some assigned to hotels—as well as the logistics of delivering food, fulfilling supply orders and transporting volunteers to their duties across the disaster area.  

Little did I know how incredibly experienced she was. 

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Hero Among Us: Vacaville Volunteer Firefighter Receives Certificate of Extraordinary Personal Action 

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Vincent Hayes, a 20-year-old Vacaville volunteer firefighter, with his CEPA

20-year-old Vincent Hayes, a Vacaville volunteer firefighter, was presented with the Certificate of Extraordinary Personal Action (CEPA) by the American Red Cross on November 18 for his heroic actions of saving a man’s life while at “The Happiest Place on Earth” in early August of this year. 

As Vincent and his girlfriend boarded the Disneyland Railroad 30 minutes before midnight, there was a commotion that caught his attention. Another couple adjacent to the ride was laying a man down on the floor after asking if “he was ok”. 

Vincent instantly took action, hopped off the slow-moving train and ran towards the couple and the man who wasn’t ok. Once on the ground, he assessed the situation and checked for the man’s pulse. He was apneic, not breathing while unconscious, and pulseless. 

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Training the Next Generation of Babysitters

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(Back Row, L to R) Berkeley Rahn, Paula Luzardo, Natalie Malas and Eloise Green. (Front Row L to R) Trey Roost, Piper Hanson, Simone Gendreau and Molly Foster hold mannequin babies during Red Cross Babysitter’s Training course at Marinwood Community Center in San Rafael, Calif.

On a recent rainy day, a dozen young students aged 10 to 13 gathered at the Marinwood Community Center in San Rafael. The three boys and nine girls were there to learn some critical skills and earn an American Red Cross Certificate through the newly updated Babysitter’s Training course. Instructor Robyn Bruton began by asking the students, “What experience do you have with babysitting?” Hands shot into the air.

One girl offered “I have a lot of little cousins I hang out with.”

“I once held a baby!” called out one boy.

Bruton says there are “no wrong answers” to that question and that in this one-day class, students would gain the skills and confidence they needed to become successful babysitters. “Parents are always looking for babysitters, and they want someone they trust. I think this just adds an additional layer that they know their babysitter had a good foundation of training.”

This year, the Red Cross debuted a revamped Babysitter’s Training course, modernized for a new generation of young people. “The class definitely needed to be modernized,” remarks Bruton.

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