RED CROSS HELPS FAMILIES COPE WITH DISASTER

Jodie Jones vividly recalls the fire that destroyed her home and all her family's possessions last fall and just as vividly recalls how the local chapter of the American Red Cross arrived on the scene to help."Red Cross was on the scene within 10 or 15 minutes," said Jones of Cape Girardeau. Red Cross volunteers helped comfort the family, while the agency's emergency services program provided the family a hotel room for the first few nights after the fire, helped them relocate and gave them vouchers for clothes, food and furniture."I don't know what we would have done without Red Cross," Jones said.

Whatever the disaster, be it a fire that affects a single family or a flood that devastates a whole region, Red Cross is there to help, said Mary Burton, executive director of the Southeast Missouri Regional Chapter of the American Red Cross."Our mission is to help people prevent, prepare for and cope with emergencies in their lives," she said.

Locally those emergencies range from personal hardships like a person with leukemia who couldn't afford personal hygiene items to the 1993 Mississippi River flood that Burton said was the worst widespread local disaster she's seen in her 10 years in Cape Girardeau. For such regional disasters, Red Cross goes on the scene doing damage assessments, helping with shelters, providing food and counseling. But there are more personal moments, as well, Burton said."We had mental health workers who would put their arms around a flood victim just to offer comfort," Burton said of the 93 relief efforts. "In those situations, it can mean so much just to get a hug and maybe a cookie and glass of milk."Red Cross has a Congressional mandate to provide its emergency services, but it gets no federal funding.

Instead it relies on donations and funding from agencies like the United Way, which is now in the midst of its annual fund-raising drive.

The local Red Cross gets about one-third of its operating funds from United Way, Burton said. United Way provides funds for Red Cross' emergency services program."Without United Way, we wouldn't be able to do as much," she said. "It let's us focus on helping people."Helping stretch funds are the number of volunteers Red Cross uses. "Ninety-eight percent of what we do is done by volunteers," Burton said. "That's why we can do our job so effectively."Red Cross also works with other agencies to provide help to disaster victims. In the case of single family fires, for example, Red Cross workers might send a family to the FISH food bank for food and to Salvation Army for rental assistance."Providing for community emergency needs is a group effort," Burton said.

Red Cross provides food, shelter, clothing and emergency needs to disaster victims, such as families whose homes have been destroyed by fire. And the agency's volunteers also help those who are respond to emergencies. Red Cross emergency relief vehicles provide food, drinks and first aid to emergency responders, Burton said."When you are fighting a fire, you can't take a break to go to the local fast food place," she said. "So we provide Gatorade, hot meals, bandages, cool rags, suntan lotion, whatever it takes to keep them going."While responding to emergencies is what Red Cross may be best known for, the agency also works at preparing for disasters."If people are prepared, it can mitigate damage," Burton said. So Red Cross provides information to individuals, businesses and municipalities to help them prepare for emergencies, like floods, fires, tornadoes and earthquakes."Being prepared can reduced injuries, loss of life and loss of property," Burton said.

In doing all these jobs, the Red Cross can always use volunteers, Burton said. Volunteer positions range from those that require only a few hours every few months to those volunteers who go to disaster areas for two to three weeks at a time. There are volunteer position that require some expertise, such as mental health workers or nurses, and others that just require a willingness to help."We don't expect a lot of expertise," Burton said. "We'll ask, What are you good at?' Then we try to put people in spots where they can do the best job."Burton said disaster tend to bring out the best in people. They see people devastated by a disaster and want to help out. She said the best way to do this, at least through the Red Cross, is with donations of cash rather than items."It's difficult to convey that while their intentions are wonderful, it costs us money to deal with in-kind donations because we have to store, sort, clean and distribute them," Burton said.