Tag Archives: Partners

Project Roomkey – Red Cross leads the way to help most vulnerable fight COVID-19

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By Debbi Behrman

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Marianna Thomas
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In March, Marianna Thomas of the Red Cross Northern California Coastal Region, received a call from Luke Beckman, Division Disaster State Relations Director for California. Luke needed someone with Mass Care expertise to develop hotel shelter training for state and local government partners to better manage isolation and quarantine for people experiencing homelessness. The non-congregate shelter sites, which are part of California’s Project Roomkey, include hotels, motels, and trailers. California was the first in the nation to receive FEMA funding to secure thousands of isolation rooms in hotels for our most vulnerable people experiencing homelessness with the intention to protect them from COVID.

Marianna is the Mass Care Co-lead (along with Laura Hovden) for the Northern California Coastal Region, as well as the lead for the National Mass Care Webinars, and the perfect choice. “My first reaction,” Marianna recounts, “was our expertise is with helping people in disasters, not helping people experiencing homelessness and putting them in hotels.”  American Red Cross is known for congregate sheltering (like in a high school gymnasium-style shelter), not non-congregate (one person per room) sheltering. Then she realized that the Red Cross is an expert in developing and delivering training and knows more about sheltering than just about any other organization. That’s how she came to lead the team who developed the non-congregate shelter training for partners.

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Our region’s Int. Srvs. classes, discussions now offered online

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To see more regional stories and other content related to the Red Cross response to the coronavirus pandemic, please see this blog post.
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Like many other American Red Cross activities, the classes and discussion groups that have been hosted in our region by our International Services program are a service that has been re-engineered because of COVID-19 social-distancing requirements.

“When it became clear that this pandemic would be with us for a while, we started to rethink the way we were making our classes and other educational opportunities available,” says Go Funai, Director of the Service to the Armed Forces and International Services programs for the Northern California Coastal Region (NCCR).

So, beginning late last month, with an introductory course that is part of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) series, Funai’s International Services (IS) team has begun to deliver its educational offerings virtually.

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Pandemic hasn’t changed need for Red Cross DAT calls, just the way we’re doing them

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Jillian Balceta, an AmeriCorps worker in the Silicon Valley Chapter, also serves on the chapter’s DAT and Casework teams. She supported the DAT team on two recent calls using her computer at home.
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While the Covid-19 crisis has shuttered businesses, postponed community events, and required widespread sheltering-in-place, the pandemic hasn’t changed at least one thing: Individuals and families are still confronted with home fires and other emergencies that require critical assistance from the American Red Cross. Read more

Blood donors turn out to give during COVID-19 outbreak

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It’s a rainy, chilly Tuesday in Fairfield, Calif., the spring blooms drooping under the March wet. The forecast mirrors the national mood amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: a sober longing for warmer, brighter days.

Inside the American Red Cross Solano County chapter office, the outlook is undeniably more optimistic. In place of the normal tables and chairs are padded beds, techs bustling about in red scrubs, glass vials, plastic tubing, gauze and the ubiquitous red blood drop stress balls. The office’s Red Cross inhabitants have made room to welcome a new team and a lifesaving service: a blood drive. Read more

Our region is helping address the severe blood shortage

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Individuals can schedule an appointment to give blood with the Red Cross by visiting RedCrossBlood.org, using the Red Cross Blood Donor App, calling 1-800-RED-CROSS, or enabling the Blood Donor Skill on any Alexa Echo device. (If you can’t find a blood drive in your area right now, please check back as Red Cross teams are rescheduling them as quickly as possible. Thank you!)
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As the coronavirus pandemic has grown in the U.S., blood drive cancellations have also grown at an alarming rate. As of March 18, nearly 4,500 Red Cross blood drives have been cancelled across the country due to concerns about congregating at workplaces, college campuses, and schools during the coronavirus outbreak. These cancellations have resulted in some 150,000 fewer blood donations. More than 80 percent of the blood the Red Cross collects comes from drives held at locations of this type. Read more

Danny Lucas blood drive nets 80 units of blood, almost half of which came from first-time donors

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About 100 local residents turn out to honor Watsonville fire captain

Photo of Danny Lucas and his family.

Danny Lucas was joined at last Friday’s blood drive by his sons, Danny Jr. (left) and Chad (right) and by his wife, Cindi. For more photos of this very special drive, please go to this album. For a video clip of blood donor Hilary Weaver, please go here. (Photo: Virginia and Albert Becker)
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Some of the blood donors who flocked to a Red Cross blood drive in Watsonville last Friday are regular donors at the once-a-month blood drive at the Pajaro Valley Health Trust. But, on this particular day, at this particular drive, it was clear that many more came out of respect for a local resident who has given so much to his community during a 35-year career with the Watsonville Fire Department.

“When I read the story about Danny Lucas’ accident and this drive in his honor, I immediately made an appointment,” said Hilary Weaver, a Santa Cruz resident who worked alongside Lucas during her dozen years as a paramedic in the Watsonville area. Read more

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