Tag Archives: Volunteers

Red Cross was there when she needed it says woman whose home burned in fire

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This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

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KerryAnn Laufer, who lost her home on Chalk Hill Road in Healdsburg during the Kincade Fire, says she doesn’t know what she would have done without the help of the Red Cross after the fire. (Photo Credit: American Red Cross/Barbara Wood)
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KerryAnn Laufer lost her home in the Kincade Fire, but she says her experience with the American Red Cross at the Local Assistance Center in Healdsburg on Nov. 5 helped her when she needed it the most.

“I’m so grateful for the Red Cross. You guys bailed me out when I wasn’t in a good place there,” she said of her visit to the assistance center. She arrived shaken after having seen the long line of people seeking help in the parking lot of the Healdsburg Community Center.

“What has been a big emotional piece of this for me has been the scale of it,” she said. That the fire had left many people in need “was very apparent in the parking lot,” she said. “It rattles me, even more than my personal loss.”

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Local Red Cross volunteers help others while evacuated from their own homes

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This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

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American Red Cross volunteers Vince and Robin Dieter worked on logistics and transportation and staffing for the Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire even as they were evacuated from their own home in Windsor by the fire, which came within blocks of their home. Photo credit: American Red Cross

While more than 400 Red Cross workers eventually helped with the response to the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, many local volunteers who were evacuated from their own homes worked tirelessly on an effort that allowed more than 6,500 evacuees to stay in Red Cross and community shelters even while the Red Cross workers were unsure what had happened to their own homes.

Among the many local Red Cross volunteers who had been evacuated were Windsor residents Vince (logistics and transportation) and Robin Dieter (staffing), and Jeff Fleisher (logistics and facilities).

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Former volunteer applies Red Cross lessons to loss of her home to wildfire

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This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

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Former Red Cross Disaster Action Team volunteer Jeanne Sternbergh (l) and her husband Jim (r), who lost their home in the Kincade Fire reconnect with old Red Cross friend Cindy Jones at the Local Assistance Center in the Healdsburg Community Center on Nov. 4. See more stories related to the Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire. See photos from this response.

Jeanne Sternbergh spent many years as a Red Cross Disaster Action Team member, responding countless times to help Sonoma County residents displaced by home fires. Now she’s helping herself.

Sternbergh and her husband Jim lost their home off Chalk Hill Road in Healdsburg, California to the Kincade Fire.

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Electeds help lead the charge in preparedness

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This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

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Red Cross shelter manager Virginia Escalante and volunteer David O’Neil welcomes Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore at the Sonoma County Veterans Building. 10/28/19
Photo credit: Kathryn Hecht | American Red Cross
See more stories related to the Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire.
See photos from this response.

Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore says the “new normal” should refer to preparedness, not disaster. “Let’s embrace being ready,” he said during a press conference in the middle of the Kincade Fire.

 

For the past two years, Gore, and his colleagues on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors put in place ambitious plans – coordinating with numerous state, county, and local agencies (including the Red Cross) and neighborhoods – to not only help a community recover from the Tubbs Fires Disaster in 2017, but also prepare for the next one.

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Santa Rosa nursing students were ‘unsung heroes’ in fire shelters

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This is another in a series of stories we are posting on this regional blog related to the American Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire disaster:

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Nurses Jennifer Frye of Lower Lake and Alondra Marquez of Petaluma, posing here with Oakland Raiders cheerleaders and mascot, were among those who volunteered to help provide nursing to those who sought shelter from the Kincade Fire in three Red Cross shelters in Santa Rosa. Photo credit: American Red Cross/Barbara Wood
See more stories related to the Red Cross response to the Kincade Fire.
See photos from this response.

The Santa Rosa Junior College student nurses who turned out in force to help the nearly 1500 residents of three Santa Rosa Red Cross shelters during the Kincade Fire were true “unsung heroes,” says Red Cross nurse Peggy Goebel.

Goebel, a veteran Red Cross volunteer nurse and disaster worker since her younger days, set up the nursing services at the shelters in the Veterans Memorial building and the nearby fairgrounds in Grace Pavilion and Finley Hall.

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