Tag Archives: Bay Area

‘I’m Halfway There!’ A Red Cross Volunteer’s Journey to Safeguard 100 Homes and Empower Communities Through Fire Safety

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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.

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More Than a Passion: Red Crosser Vicki Pelton Shares Her Life’s Work

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Photo Courtesy of Vicki Pelton / American Red Cross

Born and raised in California, Vicki Pelton was deeply inspired to help people after a nine-month trip to Africa. Seeing poverty-stricken people tugged at her heartstrings and she felt compelled deeply to give back in some way. Once back on U.S. soil, the Mountain View resident signed up with the Palo Alto Area Chapter of the Red Cross (currently known as the Silicon Valley Chapter), beginning her 34-year journey as a Red Cross volunteer.

Over the years, Vicki has learned and fulfilled multiple roles, or Group-Activity-Positions (GAP) with the Red Cross, including Recovery, Logistics, and Disaster Services Technology (DST). She enjoys the fact that the Red Cross constantly creates new positions and provides opportunities to train for those new roles. She just finished training for a position within the Disaster Cycle Services team as part of the E3 initiative: Every Shelter, Every Day and Every Need. This initiative streamlines the supply distribution for all shelters during a Disaster Response Operation.

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Spotlight on the Region’s Chapter Board Chairs

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By Chloe Li

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

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Paying it forward: Red Cross Platelet Donor Achieves 100-gallon Milestone

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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.

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A Volunteer Committed to Helping Others

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Photo courtesy of Barbara Atlas
American Red Cross

Barbara Atlas is an example of volunteerism. She has been committed to the Red Cross mission since she started as a Disaster Action Team (DAT) member with the National Capital and Greater Chesapeake Region in Washington DC. “For 4 of the 37 years we lived four miles from the White House, I enjoyed responding to fires and other local disasters as a DAT team member,” she said.

After they retired, Barbara and her husband moved to Oakland in 2019. She knew she wanted to continue supporting the humanitarian mission of the Red Cross. One of the many ways she jumped back into volunteering locally was by becoming a blood delivery driver for the Bay Area Chapter Blood Services team. “I get a lot of pleasure from driving a Red Cross van to transport blood, both the pickup of new blood from donor centers and delivering blood as needed to local hospitals. I know that donated blood is saving lives. It is also gratifying to train new drivers for transporting blood and thrilling to see my former trainees on the job. But most important is getting to know the generous people who work in Blood Services helped me learn how,” she said.

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The lifesaving power of blood donations

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 Sarah with her son right after his surgery, which included the blood transfusions.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Montoya

For many, the prospect of donating blood comes with certain apprehensions. Most Americans who are eligible and healthy enough to donate blood choose not to do so. But Sarah Montoya from San Francisco makes a point of going out of her way to donate whenever she’s able, as she knows firsthand the lifesaving power a single blood donation contains.

Five years ago, Sarah discovered that her 10-month-old son had a Wilms tumor growing on his kidney. He was one of the 43 children who, on average, are diagnosed with cancer in America every single day.

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