Tag Archives: Regional

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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Why Blood Donors Who are Black Matter: One Woman’s Lifesaving Connection to Donors

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“After being sick I wanted to get out of the house and look normal,” Jenielle says

Growing up, Jenielle Tulloch didn’t understand why illness followed her when no one else around her seemed to suffer the same way. Pain came in waves, sudden and consuming. “A lot of times I felt like a burden to them,” she says about getting sick so often.

“It’s like you’re being stabbed multiple times, over and over, an internal throbbing pain like a heartbeat,” she says. These crises would send her to hospital. As a child she thought: “You aren’t going to make it past 30, you aren’t going to have kids.”

Fortunately, she did make it past the age of 30 and had two children of her own. As an adult she began to educate herself about sickle cell disease. And eventually she even came to appreciate how the experience shaped her.

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2025 Chapter Focused Volunteer Awards

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Each year, our chapter proudly honors two extraordinary individuals whose dedication and service embody the very heart of the American Red Cross mission. The Volunteer of the Year Award is presented to a volunteer who has made a significant impact over the past year—contributing meaningfully to our operations, programs, and services while exemplifying the true spirit of volunteerism. The Clara Barton Honor Award for Meritorious Leadership, our chapter’s highest, once-in-a-lifetime recognition, celebrates a volunteer whose sustained leadership and collaborative spirit over many years have helped shape and strengthen our ability to serve the community. Join us in celebrating this year’s remarkable honorees.

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Superwoman to the Rescue: Patti Childress’ Story 

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Trigger Warning: Graphic Surgery Descriptions 

If it’s true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then Patti Childress must be Superwoman. The dynamic, assertive strawberry-blonde has had 40 surgeries over the past 29 years; yet, she still maintains an incredibly demanding schedule as a Blood Services account manager with the American Red Cross, where she’s responsible for getting blood drives booked and done. 

Woman standing next to blood drive sign at a Red Cross Blood Donation Center in San Jose.
Patti Childress is proud to share her health history with students and adults at the American Red Cross. She says that every day, volunteer blood and platelet donors are needed across the country to help save lives.

“Yes,” she said, “it would be a lot for anyone to do,” especially given the huge territory she is responsible for across the Northern California Coastal Region. But she is committed to encouraging, scheduling, planning, organizing, overseeing and finalizing blood drives as a way to thank all the people who were willing to donate the blood and platelets she needed to save her life. 

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Sound The Alarm:  502 Homes Made Safer Thanks to Red Cross Volunteers, Local Fire Departments and Community Partners

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1,357 smoke alarms installed throughout the Northern California Coastal Region in this spring

The American Red Cross responds to home fires more than any other disaster nationwide, so home fire prevention is something we take seriously. For that reason, Red Cross members, along with local fire departments and community partners, to install 1,357 free smoke alarms in 502 homes, making 1,472 residents safer from homes fires during our 2025 Sound the Alarm campaign. From April 26 – May 23, communities in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Merced, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties were made safer thanks to free smoke alarms and home fire prevention education.

Sound the Alarm events are a critical part of the national Red Cross Home Fire Campaign which aims to reduce the number of deaths from home fires. The Home Fire Campaign has helped save 2,320 lives since its launch in October 2014 due to working smoke alarms in homes. Nationwide, volunteers and local fire departments visit neighborhoods to install free smoke alarms and share home fire prevention information with residents, including home fire escape plans. Here in the Northern California Coastal Region, volunteers and partners have installed more than 55,300 free smoke alarms and made more than 20,000 households safer since 2014, saving 32 lives reported in the Greater Bay Area.

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