Working with our partners, several mobile kitchens are cooking tens of thousands of hot meals, which more than 80 Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) are delivering daily to people struggling in the hardest hit areas. Three of those ERVs are from Central & Southern Ohio. In one day alone the Red Cross provided 142,000 meals to people in need. Red Cross emergency shelters are open to give people a safe place to rest, and disaster aid stations are also open where people can get food and relief supplies. Trained volunteers are providing health and mental health support to families who have suffered unimaginable loss.
We have local volunteers from right here in the Miami Valley providing this assistance. Volunteers like Dave, who’s been in Florida for two weeks, working in warehouses with teams of Red Cross volunteers moving ready-to-eat meals, water, cleaning supplies and other necessities across the state. Or Jim, who is setting up telecommunications and internet networks so we can coordinate responses. Chris has been in place providing mental health care and helping those who have experienced the worst time of their life piece together a way to move forward. Let us not forget Julie and Rob, a married couple who drove the Miami Valley Emergency Response Vehicle to Florida to deliver meals in damaged neighborhoods. These are just a few of the Miami Valley volunteers who have deployed to lend a hand and more from our area and across the country continue to join them each day. I have been with the American Red Cross for over twenty-five years and there is not a day or a disaster, that our volunteers do not amaze me.
A lesser-known impact of Hurricane Ian’s wrath is the disruption of the nation’s blood supply. Dangerous weather conditions cancel blood drives leaving thousands of blood and platelet donations going uncollected. Last week, the Red Cross sent several hundred blood products to Florida to ensure patients continue to have access to lifesaving blood. Some of those blood units came from our Columbus processing center which processes the blood collected here in the Miami Valley. The Red Cross operates a national inventory system that allows us to move blood when it’s needed, where it’s needed.
The American Red Cross will be in Florida for many, many months ahead helping individuals, families and communities through their recovery process following Hurricane Ian. Florida — the sunshine state — a haven where Ohioans vacation or retire, but today that is not its story. Will you become part of its recovery? Will you become the next volunteer to lend a hand? Will you become the next donor to make a financial contribution? Will you become the next person to roll up your sleeve to donate blood? I have lived in the Miami Valley all my life, a community made up of great neighbors, generous people who will help a stranger in whatever way they can. Will you help? Learn more on www.redcross.org.
Lynne Gump is the Executive Director of the American Red Cross Miami Valley Chapter.
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