“I’m here for the boys,” Marguerite Holtgrieve told the soldier who would eventually become her husband.
It was 1945. Marguerite, who went by Maggie, was one of several thousand women who volunteered with the American Red Cross during World War II. The Red Cross had started a project to boost the morale of American servicemen abroad and give them connection to home while they fought overseas. Young ladies like Maggie joined a brigade of “Donut Dollies” who served coffee, donuts, and light entertainment out of converted GMC trucks outfitted with kitchens.
Stationed on an army base in Nancy, France, 26-year-old Maggie met Ardo Stocks the day after V-E day. The medic was recovering from a gunshot wound that would later earn him Bronze Star and Purple Heart military medals.
“I was born to help people. That’s what brings me the most joy.” Caro (Carolina) Dratva, a Red Cross Northern California Coastal Region’s Disaster Cycle Services Team member and Communications volunteer, heard the call to help others early. When she was 12 and still living in Colombia, a volcanic eruption buried a close friend’s hometown, Armero. “I could only watch TV, listen to the radio, and follow up with my friend,” whose parents had died in the disaster with 23,000 others. Responders with the Red Cross emblem arrived to rescue victims and remove debris during an operation that she would remember later when, at age 15, she noticed the same emblem among response teams in San Francisco in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which she witnessed. At that time, she revealed, “I didn’t realize that the Red Cross was mainly run by volunteers.” It was only after she asked how much responders were paid that she understood that most rescuers offered their unpaid time and effort to save others, a fact that must have deeply moved this scuba diver, surfer, conservationist, and explorer to dive deep and dedicate more than two decades to volunteering.
After all, when Caro set off for the Bahamas several years ago on a dolphin trip with her closest friend, she couldn’t have predicted that her life would be deeply impacted again. “During the night,” she recently shared, “I went to swim with dolphins 85 miles out on a boat. We were anchored, and I was the only one swimming. Everyone else was on the boat. So, I went off with the dolphins. There was a full moon, and I lost my sense of direction. But because of the moonlight reflecting on the water, I couldn’t find the boat. I couldn’t see it. For the first time, I felt panic, like, ‘I’m going to die here.’ But the dolphins were still hanging with me. So, I literally spoke to them: ‘Could you please bring me back to the boat.’ And then, one pushed me on one side, the other pushed me on the other, and they brought me right back to the boat.’” This profound moment of trust and connection with the dolphins helped her realize the power of relying on others during moments of crisis. Just as the dolphins guided her to safety, Caro felt compelled to help guide others through challenging times, which ultimately led her to dedicate her time to lifesaving organizations such as the American Red Cross.
Photos courtesy of Caro Dratva
“There has to be a way that I can volunteer.” The real work began with 9/11, when the Twin Towers came down in Manhattan’s Battery. She needed to help, so she joined the Red Cross. “I thought, if I have to deploy to New York, I’ll do it. But then, I realized I needed training.” Getting that training during such a fraught time for the country and those who’d lost loved ones required sensitivity and an ability to ask the right questions.
“My first training was in San Francisco,” she recalled, “connecting the missing people on lists with their families.” Mainly, she conducted interviews meant for search and rescue teams, gathering descriptions of missing people, noting the floors they worked on and what they were wearing the last time they were seen. Even now, twenty-two years later, Caro remembers one moving experience when she used her native language skills to search for a distraught woman’s husband who’d worked in the Towers. “She spoke Spanish, and the good news was that the woman’s husband was alive and able to reconnect with her.”
Later, after a one-year hiatus in Europe, she continued to dedicate herself to helping others, getting involved in Red Cross blood drives, donation collection campaigns, and numerous disaster relief operations, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Caro and Red Cross Volunteers supporting communities affected by wildfires in North Bay, 2017
Since then, Caro has watched the Red Cross grow even more effective, learning from hard knocks like Katrina. Better organizational tools have improved efficiency before, during, and after disasters, allowing volunteers like her to give time even when time is sometimes hard to spare. Holding down two jobs—one focused on ocean conservation and the other on architectural design—Caro still finds time to volunteer in numerous ways. “Because of good organization and how the Red Cross has grown, I can be on standby for the Disaster Action Team (DAT). I’m also trained for sheltering, and I’m part of the Public Affairs and Communications team.”
All this volunteering has added up over the years. From one training session to another, Caro has developed expertise through online and real-world experience. With every exposure she’s had to disasters, shelters, and blood drives, she has noticed, listened to, and recognized others as they face some of the most challenging moments of their lives. This may be one reason why she still swims for life, giving a great gift to others along the way: how to save others while saving oneself.
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