Managing unsolicited donations presents challenges for Red Cross
By Ellis Levinson

There is a secret storeroom lurking in Santa Rosa. Its contents are as inexplicable and bizarre as any collection of hodgepodge the American Red Cross has ever known. It has nothing to do with Halloween. And we don’t want the stuff. The challenge is to have it go out the door more quickly than it comes in. In other words: “Help!” Read more
His Napa Valley ranch house was just yards from the raging fire two weeks ago, and Kelly McDonald says he’s grateful it was miraculously spared.
The Red Cross has thousands of new people interested in volunteering, following the wildfire disaster that swept through the wine country north of San Francisco. Many of them were deeply affected by the fires, themselves.
As the firestorm swept through the California wine country, the entire town of Calistoga was evacuated and many residents, including at least a thousand agricultural workers, drove to the Red Cross shelter in Napa.