Letter from Southeast Tennessee Executive Director, Julia Wright - October 2017

What a heart-breaking, emotional time we have experienced in the past six weeks as Americans.  Our work at the American Red Cross is often filled with the aftermath of the most difficult times in someone’s life.  Regardless of whether it is a family displaced by a home fire in a single neighborhood; the devastation of a community that struggles as basic amenities like electrical power and water are disrupted in a major way due to storms; or concert goers impacted by a horrific event- the American Red Cross and our many partners are always there.

Southeast Tennessee volunteers who are trained and ready, answered the call to respond.  Over 91% of the workforce of the American Red Cross is made up of volunteers like Ken and Linda who offer to travel over 800 miles leaving the comfort of their homes behind to help those displaced by Hurricane Harvey.  In the days and weeks that followed many other volunteers followed suit.  Just weeks after the devastation in Texas, volunteers were opening shelters across the southeast in preparation for Hurricane Irma.  In Chattanooga, Red Cross volunteers in partnership with the East Brainerd Church of Christ opened an evacuation shelter for those that were seeking refuge from the impending Hurricane Irma.  More recently, three of our seasoned volunteers left their homes in Rhea County for Puerto Rico, meeting up with an additional 122 Red Cross volunteers at the Atlanta airport to take life-saving blood products, food, communication equipment, and many other much needed supplies to help in the relief efforts there.

It is volunteers like these that are the heart and hands of our organization!

--Julia