Northeast Tennessee Volunteer Spotlight: Glenna Finco - Dec. 2019

As a volunteer with the Northeast Tennessee Chapter, Volunteer Happenings arrives in your inbox monthly. This digital publication enables us to keep up with events occurring in our chapter and gives us important dates to remember. This publication reaches us thanks to local volunteer Glenna Finco. Did you ever wonder who Glenna is and how she became a Red Cross volunteer?

In 2016, Glenna’s husband retired from his position with the Oak Creek, Wisconsin Police Department. Having vacationed in the Gatlinburg and Smokey Mountain area for years, they knew they wanted to look for a new home in East Tennessee. Gray, Tennessee attracted them, and by the Fall of 2017 the Finco family was settled in a new home, their 16 year-old-daughter was enrolled at Daniel Boone High School, and her husband was a substitute teacher. Glenna began looking around for a volunteer position. By chance, the Red Cross opened a disaster shelter at her church and the rest, as they say, is history. Glenna took the one-day shelter training and was immediately hooked as a Red Cross volunteer.

After serving as a shelter volunteer and responding to single-family fires, Glenna began assisting in the chapter office. An office administrator for both the police department and a church in Wisconsin; she quickly became a valued volunteer in the chapter office. Her heart led her to volunteer management; where she began collecting information for the Volunteer Happenings. Glenna says she enjoys her administrative work for a couple reasons. First, she wants the volunteers to know how important they are to our organization. Four staff members could not manage the work of the Red Cross in Northeast Tennessee without partnering with our 276 dedicated volunteers. Secondly, she enjoys relieving some of the stress of extra work for the staff by completing administrative tasks for them. Tasks she has completed include updating volunteer profiles, updating response lists, encouraging volunteers to maintain their work history and volunteer hours, and any other internal and administrative tasks she is assigned.

Besides volunteer administrative work, Glenna has helped with several assignments in Disaster Services including updating shelter agreements and restocking shelter kits.   

Glenna enjoys scrapbooking and making greeting cards when she has a few spare minutes. 

If you are a new volunteer Glenna has some advice for you. Come to an orientation, connect with and meet other volunteers, try new volunteer positions and ask questions.   

Now, when you read your next Volunteer Happenings you will know the person behind the publication: Glenna Finco, a Northeast Tennessee Red Cross volunteer, just like you.