Meet Susanne Newswanger, a Red Cross nurse recently honored with the Clara Barton Award for Meritorious Leadership
Photo courtesy of Susanne Newswanger
Over 13 years with the Red Cross, Susanne Newswanger has demonstrated the essence of being a Red Cross nurse: she cares for people during disasters and emergencies and works hard to ensure the well-being of volunteers, staff and the communities we serve are met.
From her role as the Coordinator of Disaster Health Services in the Silicon Valley Chapter to her current position as the Pacific Division Staff Health Lead, Susanne has been a driving force for recruiting, onboarding and training Disaster Health Service volunteers.
“When I first joined [the Red Cross]in 2009, my primary goal was to deploy to disasters. [In addition,] I also joined the Deployment Team and found great satisfaction in preparing our members to respond to a disaster,” she said.
At the heart of the Red Cross’s vast network lies an essential role: that of the Board of Director’s Chair for a local chapter. These individuals play a pivotal part in guiding community leaders and leading their respective chapters to fulfill the organization’s mission to alleviate human suffering.
Our region’s five Chapter Board Chairs share their inspiration for joining the Red Cross below, and the critical responsibilities and significant contributions they hope to make in the community. We thank all our Board Members for their dedication, commitment and impact to ensure the Red Cross remains a beacon of hope and support when it is needed most.
To learn more about our chapters within the Northern California Coastal Region and our Board Members, visit: redcross.org/norcalcoastal
Craig Wilson donating platelets Photo by Martin Gagliano – American Red Cross
“I believe that when you receive blessings in life then you really have to give something back,” said Craig Wilson, a platelet donor who has reached an incredible 100th-gallon milestone at the Oakland Blood Donation Center. “I’ve been blessed with good health, and this is my way to pay it forward. Even if I’m not getting anything out of this -well, I get a T-shirt sometimes- it doesn’t matter because I know I’m helping the community. That’s the point”.
Craig started donating blood in Chicago around 1978. “There was a need for blood donors and I decided to donate for the first time. I did it a couple of times in the year, but with not much awareness,” he remembers.
“What you guys are doing, you reassure us that people are out there and care.”
Lucie Tison and her husband Tom at his house in San Rafael. Photo by Marcia Antipa / American Red Cross
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 23rd, 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.
“I truly feel honored to share my story to maybe help just one person!”
Kathie Reinholds of Brentwood is a big believer in “paying it forward.” More than 50 years ago, as a teenager in Hayward, she won an award for her volunteer work with the American Red Cross. Decades later, the Red Cross was able to pay Kathie back for her selfless work – not once, but twice!
Kathie’s home in Paradise, Calif., before it was destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018.
On November 8, 2018, Kathie was sound asleep in her home in Paradise, California. She lived alone, having lost her husband Gary four years earlier. What happened to her that morning is what she calls “a story and a half.”
“Something woke me up and I thought it was the middle of the night,” says Kathie. “I looked at my phone and it was 8 a.m. Normally I would roll over, but something pushed me up. I like to think it was my husband, my guardian angel.”
Kathie ran outside and found a strange scene.
The eerie glow from the Camp Fire on the morning of November 8, 2018.
“I was up on a hill and overlooked everything. It was the weirdest red sky. I thought it was a cool sunrise.”
What she saw was the smoke and flames from the Camp Fire, which raced through Paradise that morning, killing 85 people and destroying much of the town.
“We had no system in place to learn that there was a fire. All the emergency towers burned down; it just spread so fast.”
Kathie credits a neighbor for saving her life.
“She called me and said, ‘Get out now, kiddo!’”
Kathie managed to throw a few things into her car but could not find her cat and had to leave her behind. She drove through the burning town, sitting in gridlock, then on to Chico, Sacramento, and finally Lodi, where she met up with her grown children.
The burnt remains of Kathie’s Paradise home.
Kathie was able to return to Paradise the following month but found her home had burned to the ground and her cat had disappeared.
“It was horrible,” she says, choking up. “That same month I almost died. I had a heart attack. I think I’m on maybe my fourth life,” Kathie says, laughing through her tears. “I don’t know how many ‘Get Out of Jail’ cards I get but I’ve used quite a few!”
Kathie says she received financial help from FEMA and from the Red Cross. “They also had a table for travel-sized personal needs that became a staple in part of my many trips to Paradise and recreating my life.”
Kathie finally was able to create that new life for herself at a mobile home park in Brentwood in Contra Costa County. “I couch surfed for several months and moved five times before I landed the house in Brentwood. This experience either makes you humble and grateful or angry. I choose humble!”
Red Cross volunteers installing free smoke alarms in Kathie’s Brentwood community.
Five years after that devastating wildfire, Kathie once again connected with the American Red Cross. Volunteers with the Red Cross Sound the Alarm program came to her mobile home park this April to install free smoke alarms for residents.
Kathie says, “I was so thrilled. My ceilings are really high. I’m thinking, ‘how I am I going to do this?’”
The volunteer crews put in several new smoke alarms in her home. When they learned she was hard of hearing, they arranged for another crew to return and install a “bed shaker” alarm. This specialized device includes a vibrating pad that can be placed under a pillow or mattress. The bed shaker connects to other alarms in a home and features a strobe light that can rouse people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Now, Kathie tells us she feels much safer in her new home. “Oh yes, absolutely! I know at any time, anything can happen, when you least expect it, I know it. I will be forever grateful to the Red Cross.”
Kathie still believes in the Red Cross values she learned in high school and the lessons from the Camp Fire. “I have a ‘pay it forward closet.’ That closet contains a rotating supply of pots, pans, linens and other items for people in need. “Everyone should have one!”
To learn more about preparing for a home or wildfire, visit redcross.org/prepare.
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.
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