Your Red Cross Update

This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

Corazon Healdsburg bilingual volunteers (left) Norma Gomez and Luisa Fernandez-Palacios staff a desk inside the evacuation shelter at the Sonoma County Veterans Memorial Building in Santa Rosa on Oct. 30. Photo credit: American Red Cross|Barbara Wood

Local nonprofit and Red Cross partner Corazón Healdsburg offered a crucial point of contact for Latinx families during the Kincade Fire. The organization staffed Red Cross shelters in Sonoma and Marin counties with bilingual volunteers. They met with displaced Spanish-speaking families or those who were adversely affected. For some, it was the only point of contact with whom they felt comfortable.

Since 2016, Corazón Healdsburg has worked diligently in the Latinx community to create resources and a safety net for low-income families to thrive. Their programs range from financial literacy to first-generation college counseling. So when disaster struck, many in the community already knew where to go: The Healdsburg Community Center.

Read more

This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

American Red Cross volunteers Vince and Robin Dieter worked on logistics and transportation and staffing for the Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire even as they were evacuated from their own home in Windsor by the fire, which came within blocks of their home. Photo credit: American Red Cross

While more than 400 Red Cross workers eventually helped with the response to the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, many local volunteers who were evacuated from their own homes worked tirelessly on an effort that allowed more than 6,500 evacuees to stay in Red Cross and community shelters even while the Red Cross workers were unsure what had happened to their own homes.

Among the many local Red Cross volunteers who had been evacuated were Windsor residents Vince (logistics and transportation) and Robin Dieter (staffing), and Jeff Fleisher (logistics and facilities).

Read more

This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

Nurses Jennifer Frye of Lower Lake and Alondra Marquez of Petaluma, posing here with Oakland Raiders cheerleaders and mascot, were among those who volunteered to help provide nursing to those who sought shelter from the Kincade Fire in three Red Cross shelters in Santa Rosa. Photo credit: American Red Cross/Barbara Wood
See more stories related to the Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire.
See photos from this response.

The Santa Rosa Junior College student nurses who turned out in force to help the nearly 1500 residents of three Santa Rosa Red Cross shelters during the Kincade Fire were true “unsung heroes,” says Red Cross nurse Peggy Goebel.

Goebel, a veteran Red Cross volunteer nurse and disaster worker since her younger days, set up the nursing services at the shelters in the Veterans Memorial building and the nearby fairgrounds in Grace Pavilion and Finley Hall.

Read more