Tag Archives: Feature

The Promise of Blood from Diverse Donors: A Red Crosser’s Emotional Commitment to Saving Lives 

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Dedicated to the memory of Chaznee Brown, blood donor advocate and Sickle Cell Warrior

When Ed Faso was just a baby, his mother suddenly began to hemorrhage and needed more than seven units of blood to survive. His father, serving in the U.S. Navy at the time, asked his commanding officer and about 20 colleagues to donate blood on her behalf. 

Ed (left) chats with Noah James, sickle cell advocate, at the Red Cross blood laboratory in San Leandro

“They got behind my father and my mother. And all U.S. Navy Sailors in his Command donated blood for my mom,” recounts Ed. Growing up with the story of how blood donors saved his mother’s life set the stage for his career as a champion of a strong blood supply. 

Today, as the emerging accounts manager for the American Red Cross in the Northern California Coastal Region, Ed works alongside local community partners to support blood drives—especially those that help diversify our blood donor base. 

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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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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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Creative Collaboration Between Red Cross and Community Partners Solves Problems in a Disaster Zone 

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Local school bus drivers helped distribute food in Guam after a typhoon

After a massive typhoon hit Guam in 2023, people on the islands were struggling to feed their families. While the American Red Cross had set up a shelter to house people whose homes had been damaged, there were many people in the community who were not staying at the shelter but still needed food and water. Red Cross leaders wondered, how can we get food to the local community, when there are no street signs for navigating and we don’t have a fleet of vehicles here? Bus drivers were the answer! So, the Red Cross worked with the school district in Guam to distribute meals on school buses because the drivers knew the streets well and had transportation available already. 

After some time, Red Cross leadership was considering ending the feeding program in the community, but the volunteers in the field were concerned. They drove around to all the local bodegas and there was “nothing there” on the shelves, says Briana Taylor, Red Cross volunteer. “We went back and said, ‘You can’t stop feeding until we have food in the markets.’ People wouldn’t have had any resources to provide food for their families.” 

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From Engineer to Emergency Responder: Neil Katin’s Volunteer Journey

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A Staff Planning and Support Service Associate Feature

Neil went the extra mile to help set up a shelter in the middle of the night

You may have seen American Red Crossers on the news handing out food or welcoming people into disaster shelters. But you may not have seen the countless volunteers working tirelessly behind the scenes of a disaster response. Staff Planning and Support Service Associate Neil Katin is one of those people.

Neil has responded 39 times to disasters, big and small, in-person and virtually, to be the first and last Red Crosser that volunteers speak with during their deployment.

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