By Maureen Ragle, Field Office Coordinator

 

GRAFENWOEHR, Germany — March is Red Cross Month and the USAG Bavaria Red Cross is giving you the tools to become a hero: Learn a lifesaving skill, become a volunteer or make a donation to #help1family on Giving Day – March 28.

 

“The Red Cross is powered by our volunteer heroes who give of their time, talents and compassion to fulfill our vital humanitarian mission of preventing and alleviating human suffering,” said Ebony Bradley, Regional Program Manager, Grafenwoehr.

 

“They are people from your neighborhood who donate blood, who teach First Aid and CPR classes, who support those in need at what may be the worst time in their lives,” Bradley said. “We honor them during Red Cross Month and ask you to consider joining us and making a difference.”

 

March was first proclaimed Red Cross Month in 1943 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to raise awareness of the organization and its humanitarian mission. President Roosevelt’s last radio talk to the nation on March 20, 1945 was in support of the Red Cross War Fund. He died 23 days later, on April 12, 1945.

 

This year the Red Cross salutes all the heroes who make a difference in their communities by:

 

• Donating blood or platelets

 

• Volunteering to help people impacted by a disaster

 

• Taking a first aid or CPR class to help in an emergency

 

• Providing comfort to a member of the military, a veteran or their family

 

Volunteers drop everything — at any time of the day or night — to help people who have lost everything.

 

“These are the moments when I can witness strangers helping other strangers in their greatest moments of need,” said Red Cross volunteer Cindy Huge. Read more about why Huge leaves her home in the middle of the night to her others: https://redcrosschat.org/2017/12/05/compassion-after-a-home-fire.

 

WHAT RED CROSS DOES

 

Red Cross has been helping people in need for more than 130 years. And much of their work is accomplished through the work of our volunteers. The Red Cross:

 

• Responds to nearly 64,000 disasters across the country providing hope and comfort to people in need.

 

• Trains and provides information to nearly 5.9 million people in First Aid, water safety and other skills that help save lives.

 

• Collects nearly 4.9 million units of blood from more than 2.8 million volunteer donors to meet the needs of patients at hospitals and transfusion centers across the country.

 

• Provides nearly 391,000 support services to military members, veterans and their families.

 

• Helps more than 181 million people outside the U.S. through disaster management and disease prevention efforts.

 

This year, USAG Bavaria Red Cross volunteers have donated 10,857 hours to the USAG Bavaria Community. This includes providing assistance to over 190 Emergency Communication Messages, and training over 200 in life saving skills to include our Adult & Pediatric First Aid/CPR/AED course, Babysitter’s Training courses, Wilderness First Aid, and Basic Life Support.

 

During March, we are asking the many heroes in our community to join the humanitarian mission of the Red Cross. To get started as a volunteer, sign up by visiting https://volunteerconnection.redcross.org and and attend a New Volunteer Orientation on March 8 in the Grafenwoehr office from 9:30-10:30 a.m. and March 15 from 9:30-10:30 a.m. in the Vilseck office. Be sure to check out some of the lifesaving courses like the Adult and Pediatric First Aid/CPR/AED March 10 from 9-11 a.m. or the Basic Life Support Course March 10 from 1-4 p.m. And don’t forget to mark your calendars for the Run for the Red 5k March 24 at the Tower Barracks Fitness Center.

 

For more information visit the American Red Cross-USAG Bavaria Grafenwoehr & Vilseck Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ARCGRAFVILSECK.

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