March 20, 2002
Red Cross recognizes efforts
Local chapter honors community heroes, program volunteers
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
When a fire swept through downtown Traverse City apartments on Saturday, March 9, volunteers from the American Red Cross quickly assembled on the scene.
Within 30 minutes of receiving the call from Dave Worley, director of emergency services, seven people were on site as a disaster action team.
The team distributed coffee, juice, food and comfort for hours in the raging blizzard to police, fire and rescue personnel. These volunteers also comforted residents of the apartments and helped them fill out paperwork to obtain emergency food, shelter, clothing, personal care items, medicines and even glasses from area agencies and organizations.
"I called them and they dropped everything they were doing to come out and stand in sub-zero weather and help others, now that's volunteerism," said Worley, who has seven disaster teams covering Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau and Benzie counties, on call 24/7 for a week at a time.
"It is unbelievable, you couldn't do this without volunteers."
City residents Brenda and Al Quick were downtown ten minutes after Worley's call.
"My husband stood in a blizzard for hours to make sure the firefighters got what they needed," said Brenda Quick, who completed the Red Cross disaster response training last fall with her husband. "I drove around and picked up donated food and drinks. I also took information from one of the fire victims and stayed with him throughout the process."
Both attorneys who are of counsel at a downtown firm, the Quicks have made assisting at disasters a priority since last fall. They called the Red Cross shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, determined to help people in need. With a flexible work schedule, the couple have also completed training and paperwork to help at national disasters, which requires a three-week commitment of time.
"We are at a point in our lives where we can afford timewise to make that commitment and both of us are in excellent health," added Quick, who has also helped victims of a gas leak and of a house fire. "Obviously, the victims are so grateful that it just overwhelms me. We give them what we can but I cannot even articulate to you what we get in return."
"It is a gift what we're doing for them, an honor to help them."
Disaster assistance is just one facet of the myriad services offered by the Red Cross. Other services include community and safety education, ranging from CPR to lifesaving to pet first aid. In addition, military personnel and their families can access a host of services and support, both locally and around the world, through the Armed Forces Emergency Service program.
Volunteer Lauren Keinath has been introducing local military inductees and their families to these Red Cross services since last July. When a close family member recently died, she found herself calling the Red Cross for help contacting her son, a Marine stationed in Okinawa. She had managed to reach her daughter, a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal.
"We had no way of contacting my son, he was off on a training mission, but the Red Cross did it," said Keinath, who also requested a chaplain help break the news to her son. "I was real impressed by how fast they got him the information and I would have to say it worked exactly the way it is supposed to work."
The American Red Cross celebrates Red Cross Month in March throughout the nation. Locally, the organization highlighted a number of community heroes at the Fifth Annual Celebration of Community Heroes, held Friday evening at the Park Place Dome. The evening featured stories of heroism - some quiet, some acclaimed - by citizens as well as members of area police and fire agencies and the United States Coast Guard.
"It's an honor to call them heroes," summarized Judge Thomas Phillips, of the 86th District Court, who shared one of the stories.
Larry and Linda St. Ours do not consider themselves heroes. They are just doing their duty to help others as part of the Red Cross disaster action team. When the call came about the fire downtown, Larry was there within 30 minutes, even though the couple was not on call that week.
Like the Quicks, the St. Ours were motivated to volunteer by the events of September 11. Larry is a retired Michigan State Police trooper and Linda is a trained social worker, so helping at disasters is second nature to both of them. The also have an additional consideration: their daughter works in the Sears Tower in Chicago so they felt a strong connection to the parents of the World Trade Center workers.
"We knew how they felt that day, we were so worried that building would be hit," Linda said. "That was one of our motivating factors, that our daughter works in what is now the tallest building in the country. We thought, 'There but for the grace of God might go our own daughter."