Letter from Mid-West Tennessee Executive Director, David Hicks - March 2018

Hello Mid-West TN team!

Welcome to March, Red Cross Month! I can’t believe we’re already a fourth of the way through 2018.  Please make every effort this month to highlight our chapter in your local communities. One great way to do this is by arranging to speak in a public forum (or schedule something for me and Heather) such as a local church, school, civic club, etc. and educate the local community on all the outstanding services we provide to those impacted by disaster. Other ways to highlight the work we do include spotlighting our Disaster Action Team disaster responses that you and/or others in your county have participated in. We are always looking for stories to include in local newspapers, radio stations, etc. and can work with our communications team to arrange news coverage to get the word out to a larger audience.

As many of you are now aware, we’ve officially rescheduled our “Sound the Alarm, Save a Life” smoke alarm installation for Saturday, April 21^st in McNairy Co. We’ll also be doing installations in both Selmer and Adamsville in our effort to install 400 smoke alarms! We hope that many of you can carve out time that day to join us for this very important lifesaving event. Simply go to the following link to officially register for the event:  redcross.org/STAjackson

Speaking of smoke alarm installations, thanks again to all the volunteers who participated in the Benton County Home Fire Campaign on Saturday, February 24^th in Camden. Heather and I appreciate all of you for pushing forward with the event (while also having to prepare for potential flooding in our chapter). That’s called “above and beyond” which is typical for so many of you!

I also want to highlight one of our upcoming events that has proven to be a MAJOR showcase for our chapter (and the amazing work that all of you do on behalf of your respective counties)! We’ll be hosting our annual Heroes Luncheon fundraiser event on Thursday, May 17^th at the Carl Grant Center on the campus of Union University. We’re in the process of securing sponsorships and making selections of honorees for the program. Last year’s event was a huge success and we are hoping to top it this year. I’ll highlight the event in more detail in next month’s newsletter article.

I hope each of you have an enjoyable March as we celebrate the American Red Cross locally and nationally!