Red Cross seeks volunteers for hurricane season
— Photo by Scott Dalton/American Red Cross
Red Cross volunteer Marc Lazerow, on July 28, welcomes the Cantu family to their cots at a Red Cross shelter in Edcouch, Texas for people displaced by Hurricane Hanna. Family units are grouped closer together while other cots are spaced further apart for social distance from others.
The American Red Cross in Eastern New York is seeking 100 new volunteers to be part of its Hurricane Season Readiness Reserve Corps, a new trained group ready to support affected communities in the event of a major disaster in our region and beyond.
Serving 27 counties and more than 3.6 million people, the American Red Cross Eastern New York Region comprises chapters from central and northern New York, the Hudson Valley, and northeastern New York chapters along with three blood-donation centers.
A large number of “reserve” volunteers is needed due to the added constraints brought on by COVID-19 and the projected intensity of the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, 2020, with its peak in the Northeast in August and September.
This month’s Hurricane Isaias, the ninth named storm and second hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, wreaked havoc up and down the East Coast, providing a critical reminder we need to be ready, said a Red Cross release.
“The coronavirus pandemic will make it challenging to deploy trained disaster volunteers from other parts of the country should an emergency occur. In light of this, the Red Cross is asking you to be ready to help your community,” said Kevin Coffey, regional chief executive officer of the American Red Cross Eastern New York Region, said in the release. “Train now to be a Red Cross volunteer and answer the call to help if the need arises here in our region or beyond.”
Currently, volunteers to support sheltering efforts are needed. To help keep people safe during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the Red Cross has put in place additional precautions and developed special training for its workforce.
The Red Cross needs volunteers to help staff at shelters with reception, registration, feeding, dormitory, information collection, and other vital tasks. All necessary training (minimum three hours) is provided virtually. In the event of a disaster mobilizations, individual shifts for this role are 12 hours.
To learn more about volunteer opportunities visit; https://bit.ly/redcrossreserve
