Red Cross

I recently volunteered for the Red Cross. What surprised me was how strict they were in terms of making sure that the volunteers were proper, committed people. I'm subject to a background check as well as an interview. In essence, it's like applying for a new job! It's probably a good thing, it weeds out the people who thought "why not?" and sign up for it. And truth be told, a part of me is in that category. It's easy to volunteer for stuff, but it's harder to stay in it for a long period of time. Red Cross does emphasise the "we want you to be doing a job that you want" instead of the "throwing bodies at it" approach that many other agencies take.

So I did do some browsing and I'm thinking that the Disaster Response Reserves sounds interesting. I'd like to be able to use some of this project management skill (or lack thereof) to help out in disaster situations. And surely if I can work calmly in a disaster situation, everything else in my normal line of work will be a piece of cake!

I went to the orientation the other day, to get a history on the organisation and all that jazz. A few random facts:
- Red Cross symbol is the second most recognizable symbol globally, number one being Coca Cola
- Red Cross responds to about 8 "incidents/disasters" per day. Obviously a disaster is anything where bad stuff happens, right down to a family.
- Red Cross have about 4,000 volunteers in the Greater New York region, and they are aiming for 10,000. That's bigger than my company!

It will be interesting to see how this goes. My previous concepts of charity were more slanted towards teaching a person to fish, as opposed to giving the fish away. With disaster relief, it's really all about giving stuff away to make sure people get through the initial "survival" phase. Will see if it's fulfilling or not. Either way, any charity is better than none.