American Red Cross

Yesterday marked the first day of a new adventure in my life.  For a while now I have desired to get involved with disaster relief.  I have felt this call on my life ever since the Katrina disaster, which was now 5 years ago.  Right after that I moved to Tampa to begin my EMT training, which was completed.  I then started to move towards nursing so I could be a more experienced member of a team, but that dream was put on hold for a brief time.  No longer.  Recently I made steps to completing my RN, and last night was my first step in getting involved with disaster relief.  I attended my orientation for becoming a volunteer of the American Red Cross, and it was wonderful. 

I learned an immense amount about the history of the Red Cross.  One interesting piece of information is that the International Committee of the Red Cross actually was started by a Swiss gentleman named, Henry Dunant in 1876.  Five years later Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.  I had always thought the entire organization was founded by her. It fascinated me to hear how this business man, Henry Dunant's, story.  While traveling through northern Italy on business, he stopped in Solferino one evening, and witnessed a great battle in which 40,000 troops were left wounded or were killed.  Struck by the immense suffering and lack of medical attention, Dunant organized the local towns people and devoted himself to helping the sick and wounded.  He wrote his entired experience down in a book titled, A Memory of Solferino.   I plan on picking up this book, when I have a chance! :)

I left feeling very affirmed that this was the right organization to be joining.  So many areas to get involved with, a host of classes available for me to take, with an organization that is recognized the world over.

There are a lot of areas in which they need help and assistance.  I asked for the Health and Safety Services Team and the Disaster Team to contact me.  Janie, our instructor yesterday evening, informed us that the leader of these teams would be contacting us over the next week to discuss with us openings they have and where we can get involved.  So that is the next step.

PLC!