Letter from Northeast Tennessee Executive Director, Glenda Bobalik - January 2015

Welcome to 2015!  What a wonderful feeling a new year brings, full of opportunity and reward.  I want to share a few examples of opportunities coming soon.

Many of you have mentioned a desire for more information to enhance your ability to serve the community as Red Cross volunteers, staff, and supporters.  As a first step toward this goal, we are beginning a quarterly series of “Lunch and Learn” events.  Topics for these events will be determined by your requests for information.  The first topic will be “Emergency Managers: What are their responsibilities and how do they interact with us.”  Knowledge of our partnership with Emergency Management is useful to all of us as we represent the Red Cross in the community.  On an even broader scale, their role impacts us as members of the community that they serve.  Take an hour to learn about this aspect of our community’s government.  They are open to all of our Red Cross family.  Watch your email for dates and times.

Have you heard about our disaster mini-institutes?  These are three day events where we offer training in topics relevant to disaster response.  As I have watched the participants in past training institutes, the primary benefit I saw was the interaction between volunteers.  This is an excellent opportunity to share experiences and get to know your peers.  The event will be in February so watch your email for dates and times or give us a call.

The Pillowcase Project is recruiting facilitators.  This is our preparedness program for elementary age children. Following Hurricane Katrina, many youth left their homes carrying their belongings in a pillowcase.  This generated an idea for raising awareness of the items we should all have on hand when disaster strikes.  Each session is an hour long and lots of fun with active participation by students.  If this sounds interesting, contact us to learn more.

These three activities are just the beginning of the list of happenings at your Red Cross.  Email, call or come visit us to explore your involvement with the opportunities offered in 2015.  Join in the fun!

Glenda