January 22, 2025 • 25 mins
Abby Walker discusses the resources the Red Cross is providing during the tragic wildfires in Los Angeles, what the organization does year-round and how you can help. She also explains where donations are allocated and how you can choose where the money you donate goes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And this is Jessaman McIntyre, your hosts of Seattle Voice,
your Community Voice presented by iHeartRadio Seattle, and here to
tell us more about what you can do during this
time a crisis in Los Angeles to help those in need.
It's Abby Walker, our local Northwest regional communications director for
Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Abby, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Really really appreciate it and everything that you do. And
there are people that might not know exactly what you do.
So can you tell me a little bit about your
position at the Red Cross, how long you've been there
and the communities you serve here in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, so have I work on the communications team here
in the Northwest region. So the Northwest region of the
American Red Cross covers Washington State and a couple of
the northern counties in northern Idaho. And our mission is
to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies,
and so we do that through disaster relief. And here
(00:56):
in Washington State we a lot of times that shows
its space when we're responding to home fires or other disasters.
We have wildfires, we have flooding here, and so we
respond to disasters, but we also have other branches of
our mission as well. We collect forty percent of the
nation's blood supply. We work with military families on military
(01:17):
installations and active duty service members to provide help and
resources for them. We also train on CPR and train
life saving skills, and so we have a lot of
different areas that we really work to support that mission.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
That's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I didn't know that you would offer that kind of training,
you know, first aid or CPR and things like that.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
How can people sign up for that?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
And is it a limited amount of space and time
that you're able to provide that.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So we have classes happening year round. So the best
way to figure out what might work for you is
to go to redcrops dot org slash take a class
and you can see what different classes are offered near
you and what time, so you can typically find one
within the next couple of weeks or months that you
can go and get CPR certified or first Aid certified.
I just did mine last year, and you know, it's
(02:07):
a great reminder of the skills that you need when
things are when you're facing an emergency and things are scary.
It's nice to have.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That refresher right and it doesn't have to be a
large scale one. You could just be at a certain
place at a certain time and need those skills and
be able to help out emergency big or small. Could
be one person and that's really amazing. I had no
idea that you could do that. And where can people
go to sign up for those red Cross.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Dot org slash take a class online. You can just
go to red Cross dot org and find your way
from there, but take a class after the splash, we'll
get you there.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Thank you very much for that. So note that down.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Folks, Please if you're driving, don't write it down, but
you can listen back to this podcast once it is
once it's posted, and get the resources that you need again.
Abby Walker, Northwest Regional communications director for the Red Cross
here in the Pacific Northwest. Now Abby, on a national level, obviously,
the LA fires is a huge crisis that we're all
(03:04):
paying attention to nationwide right now. And you know we
have been encouraging our listeners to donate. We have a
link on our website nine three to three kjar dot
com here and our entire iHeart Cluster has individual links
as well, So there is a lot of questions.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
There are a lot of.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Questions when it comes to things like this because people
want to do something and they can't physically go, they
can't help these people out of the fire. There's a
ton of boots on the ground there that are doing so.
So you know, we encourage this donation. A lot of
questions about it are where do those resources go? What
exactly am I donating to? You know, it's great, but
(03:45):
I'd like you to take a deep dive into where
the resources are allocated when it comes to actually the
physical help that the people who are suffering from an
emergency provide.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah, there are a lot of ways that the Red
Cross helps during disaster like this and how your donations
support our work. And so starting from the beginning, the
Red Cross is there as soon as these disaster strikes,
So as soon as those fires start to burn, the
Red Cross is there working with partners and opening shelters
so that anyone who had to evacuate had a safe
(04:18):
place to go. We right now have more than seven
hundred and fifty people staying in Red Cross shelters in
the LA area. And so that's the very primary start
of our mission. We also send volunteers and staff members
into the area to be able to support so here
in Washington right now we have around nineteen of our
(04:39):
local team members who are down in southern California helping
on this disaster response. We send skilled workers in to
make sure that we are having all the logistics. We
have mental health workers, we have disaster health workers, and
nurses go in to help families when they leave a
disaster are setting like this, They come into the shelter,
(05:01):
they've lost everything. It's heartbreaking and it's traumatic, and so
we want to be there to not only supply those
primary needs of shelter meals support, but also talk with
them individually about what they've lost and maybe prescription medications
were lost, we can work to refill those medications. And
then as we move forward, you know, we're a week
(05:23):
past when these fires started and right now we're still
seeing evacuation order. So we're still very focused on housing
and making sure that people have a safe place to stay.
But we do start to shift into recovery mode in
the weeks ahead, and so we'll start to work and
provide financial assistance to those who lost their homes. And
just start that road to recovery that we know is
(05:44):
going to be long.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Wow, that is something that to be honest, I wouldn't
have thought about prescription medication. You know, there's just so
many lose everything and a lot of those are basic,
you know, survival needs. If it comes to something like that, again,
Abbe Walker here, Northwest Regional communications director for the Red Cross,
and this is Jessamin McIntyre, your host of Seattle Voice. Abby,
(06:06):
I know that there must be some huge unit within
the Red Cross that has to allocate those funds, and
that is a huge task. When you talk about all
the different resources that you provide down to physical, to
emotional and beyond and recovery, can you tell me a
little bit about what that team would do when it
comes to allocating the resources.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So our teams, first of all, if anyone who is
looking to give financial donations, you can allocate where you
want your money to go, and our teams make sure
that we are making sure that that goes exactly where
you're asking it to go. So you can donate to
just disaster relief in general, and that's going to help
support kind of all the areas that I that I
(06:52):
spoke to you about, and that supports our ability to
send volunteers to a disaster scene to respond and help
families individually. You can also support the California wildfire specifically
in our disaster response there, and you can also donate
to other areas of our mission like I mentioned earlier,
our blood donation and other areas of our mission too,
(07:14):
So you have the ability to kind of choose where
you want those donor dollars to go, and we absolutely
honor that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
That is really interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I worked for a while with Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
and that was something too, because some people wanted research,
some people wanted to go to go towards care, and
I think that is encouraging for people because you're not
just throwing money and not knowing where it's going. Again,
people can donate at nine three three kjar dot com.
There is a donation site. It goes directly to the
Red Cross. We are encouraging listeners if they want to
(07:43):
do something to do that. And now you can actually
donate to a specific cause within that branch. So thank
you Abby for that. That is really interesting. Now I
kind of want to talk a little bit locally here.
You know you do work right here in Csattle for
the Northwest region, and I know that we're focusing on
Los Angeles, but you guys are twenty four to seven here.
(08:06):
Can you tell me a little bit about what you
guys do here within the Red Cross, just here in
the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yeah, we stay busy here as well within Washington State,
and we have hundreds of volunteers here who are working
twenty four to seven to make sure that families here
are taken care of. So we have blood drives that
are happening throughout the year, and we have volunteers who
are always on standbys to respond to disasters.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Most of our local disasters are home fires. We respond
often to home fires, and so we have volunteer teams
who will go to those home fires and provide resources
to the families who may have lost their home there.
We're also ready to respond if there are already large
scale disasters in our region as well. If we do
see wildfires here, as we know we're prone to see
(08:58):
this type of this time of year. If we see flooding,
we have the resources available to support families who are
going through that as well. And also military I mentioned
earlier we work with our service the Armedforces Team. We
have multiple military installations in Washington State, and so we
work with military families, not just active duty service members,
(09:18):
but we work with their families to make sure that
they're supported. We have the ability to message between a
deployed service member and their families at home, and so
we do a lot of work with our local military
families as well. So then, of course the life saving training.
We have trainings happening all throughout the year, so we
(09:38):
stay busy just making sure that we're here with our community,
standing by our community to make our community safer at
the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Abbie Walker joining me Northwest Regional Communications director for the
Red Cross on Seattle Voice Jessavan McIntyre with you. It
sounds like I'm hearing a lot of proactivity and not reactivity,
which is kind of something amazing because in any place
in the world right now, I see a lot of
reaction and not proactivity. So, yeah, do you start. I mean,
(10:11):
this has to be a perpetual thing. Is at the
start of the year, is there something that you guys
focus on, like, Okay, we have to prepare for this,
we have to prepare for that or is it year
round you're just getting more and more ready and learning
and evolving.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
It's year round. We are always looking to learn how
we can be better and better support our communities. We
have worked recently, just knowing how wildfires are a threat
in Washington State to develop more preparedness resources around wildfire support.
So we do preparedness with home fires, and we install
(10:45):
free smoke alarms and homes that need them. And now
we've branched out to do preparedness messaging for wild buyers
and really going out into communities and talking with homeowners
about how they can make their land a little bit
better and safer from the threat of wildfires. So we're
always That's just one example of how we're always thinking
of how can we better prepare because every disaster we
(11:07):
see is something to learn from, and we know that
they're a very difficult time and so any way that
we can be proactive before we get into that situation
is ultimately going to make our families safer, and so
we are doing that year round. And blood donations is
another branch that this is really important as well, because
when there's an emergency and someone needs blood, they need
(11:30):
it right now, and so we have to be proactive
and make sure that we have blood stocked on the
shelves so that anyone who is facing an emergency has
that care that they need. So that's another area that
it's really really important to be proactive and continue to
look for opportunities where we can grow. January is National
Blood donor Month, and so we are very aware of that.
(11:51):
And you know, there's a lot going on in the world,
but disasters do impact blood donations too, and we've already
seen hundreds of blood donations go uncle coted because of
wildfires and because of cold weather happening on the East Coast,
and so it's important to just note that as well,
that disasters have an impact on our ability to do
(12:11):
that too. So if people here in Washington who are
thinking how can I help, that's another great way to
help that you might not think of. It's roll up
to sleeve in and give blood because some places in
the country right now are unable to do that, and
so for us here in Washington, where we can, it's
a great way to help.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
That is really great.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
And I wanted to touch in on blood donations as well,
because you know, you mentioned that January is blood donation month,
and there are these big pushes throughout the year at
certain times for blood donations. But I feel like from
what I've heard from working with Blood Works Northwest in
the past, that there's always a shortage.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Is that true?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
There's always in need.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I'll say that, okay, always.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Always needing it because it's not something we can make right.
We fully rely on donors, and so we know that
there are certain times of year where we will see
lolls just based on you know, summer travel or winter
travel or holidays. We have seen trends over time, but
(13:15):
ultimately we are constantly seeing a need because now on
top of that, we're seeing more frequent disasters happening across
the country, and so we need to be even more
proactive and prepared to collect and make sure those shelves
are stocked in the hospitals.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Thank you very much for that, because I do try
to donate. I have the Universal Donor and I haven't
been in about a year and a half. So you
just motivated me to get my butt down there.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
To thank you guys.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yes, I'm glad to hear it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
There's never a bad time in my mind, Abby Walker,
Regional Northwest Regional Communications director for Red Cross here with
Jessaman McIntyre on Seattle Voice. Now, we've talked a lot
about donations, where they go, how they're allocated, But a
lot of people just clean out their closets they I mean,
I live through nine to eleven. I remember my dad
just going to the store and buying a bunch of
tools at home depot and sending them to the city.
(14:08):
People you know, have blankets and gloves and whatever the disaster,
they just want to donate them. Now, can you tell
us a little bit about either whether Red Cross accepts
them or who does it not.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, it's a great question because we know that people
want to help. People are generous here in Washington. They
want to do everything that they can to help after
a disaster, and our first priority as the Red Cross,
as we touched on earlier, is to provide shelter and
support for those who are affected. And so for us,
financial donations are the quickest and best way to help
(14:43):
those and we touched on just how that might be used,
like replacing lost items or prescription medications. Those are very
specific and unique needs for each individual, and so that's
where those financial donations enable us to quickly get that help,
very specific help to each person, whereas donations of clothing
(15:04):
or household items can divert kind of away from our mission.
And so we really ask for those financial donations right
now as we're really working hard to make sure that
these families have support. When it's possible, we can partner
with other organizations that manage donations of goods as part
of their primary mission. And right now we're asking anyone
(15:24):
who's looking to give donations of household goods or clothing
to call two to one one and you can find
out which organizations are accepting those types of donations.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
That's great, two one one out there.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
If you have physical things that you would like to donate,
they probably and it's multiple organizations.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yes, Yes, that's the place you can go to find
out which different organizations are accepting different donations.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right and it doesn't have to be a large scale
disaster either, I imagine, just like blood, there's always a need.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yes, of course, yes, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Abby Walker, Northwest Regional Communications director for the Rag Cross. Now, Abby,
I like to talk to people every single show that
I do about the starfish story.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
It's kind of my thing. I love it so much.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But I'll tell you the story, and I want to
ask if you can think of one starfish in your life.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So it's a poem that a poem, short.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Story, whatever you want to call it, that my mom
used to read to me when I was younger. And
so there is a young girl on a beach and
there's hundreds and hundreds of starfish washed up, and this
little girl just starts flinging them one by one into
the sea, and an older gentleman walks by and says,
what are you doing. You know it, You know you
can't save all of these, it doesn't matter. And she
(16:45):
flings one into the sea right in front of him
and said it matters to that one. And then one
iteration of this story has him join in and start
flinging starfish as well. And I just love that story
because it doesn't matter if you're a large scale or
small scale, there's someone that you can impact positively and
every single day and throughout your work with the Red Cross.
(17:06):
I was wondering if you have a time, a person,
or a group of people, a family, anything that you'd
like to share as a starfish story.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Oh, my gosh, this yeah, I mean working for the
Red Cross, you see these incredible stories happen every day
that just really inspire me to be the best person
I can be. Early on when we were chatting, you
mentioned just a CPR class, and it doesn't always have
(17:36):
to be, you know, somewhere public. It could just be
one person. And I remember a story just last year
that we had of a grandmother who had taken one
of our CPR classes and then just weeks later her
knew she was a grandmother. She was just had a
grand baby less than a year old, and that grand
(17:57):
baby started to turn blue, and she is able to
use that CPR training that she had just had and
was able to save her grand baby splice after just
so small And I still get goosebumps just thinking about
stories like that of how one class or one small
thing really makes a huge difference in a family. And
(18:19):
I love being a part of an organization that makes
that their mission to make sure that we're all better
and prepared for what comes our way, so that we
can keep our families and our loved ones safe. And
that's the first thought. But I think I could talk
to you the rest of the day about different things
(18:39):
within the Red Cross that I've been able and honored
to be a part of and to see and to
see unfold the help the helpers that we see come
out every day, from just rolling up a sleeve and
giving blood to dropping everything and flying to California and
making sure that families have support. The selflessness that shows
(19:04):
up in this organization is why I'm a part of it.
I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Abby Walker, Northwest Regional Communications director for the Red Cross.
And I'm learning a lot right now. I mean, I
see Red Cross come out. I mean, you know nine
to eleven Hurricane Katrina. I just remember I was bartending
at the time, having a donation. We set up a
hub where people could donate. It was all Red Cross.
But there's a lot more that I didn't know about
(19:30):
this organization, and I bet our listeners didn't know either,
So this is pretty amazing. And in that vein, I
know that we talked about donations and where people can
allocate physical resources as well, but are there volunteer opportunities?
I imagine that, especially during this time, people would want
to know.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's a great segue to speak about just the different
branches of our mission and then talk a little bit
about volunteer opportunities because ninety percent of our workforce is
volunteers WO and we've touched on some of the different
missions that we have playing out, and so truly, no
matter your skill set and no matter your interests, we
(20:12):
have a place for you, and so we are always
looking for more volunteers. We are always looking for volunteers
to serve on our disaster relief teams and be that
helping hand when someone has a home fire, we see
wildfires in Washington, or who see disasters across the country,
and not everyone is available to deploy or to travel
(20:35):
for volunteer work. And so we have volunteer opportunities within
our blood sector and we need people who can help
us to check in blood donors and be a welcoming face.
And they're called blood donor ambassadors and they help us
to make sure that blood drives go smoothly. We're always
looking for partners to help us host blood drives in
different areas so that we can reach more people as well.
(20:58):
We have volunteer opportunities with in our service, the Armed
Forces teams and working with military families and giving some
resiliency resources to military families. I work with a team
of volunteers. I have thirty volunteers on my communications team
who help us to tell the Red Cross story and
make sure that we're following up with our volunteers and
(21:19):
finding their starfish stories and finding out what makes them
passionate about the Red Cross and telling those stories across
our region as well. So really, for any skill set
where we have a place for you, I can guarantee it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
That sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Even just being a welcoming face for people who might
be nervous giving blood, that is enough and you do
need that. Can you tell me a little bit about
how you got involved with Red Cross?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Oh, I would love to thank you. So. I was
formerly a journalist actually before I came to the Red Cross,
and I got to see the Red Cross show up
many times my life. And the first time that really
stuck out to me was a large apartment fire in
an area I was covering as a reporter and it
(22:08):
was really tough apartment fire, and everyone was outside and
it happened overnight and we were all there and tired,
and I remember the Red Cross showed up and it
was this moment of hope that when they did, and
it just shifted. I'd been there since one in the morning,
and it was like a couple hours later and the
(22:29):
Red Cross showed up and wrapped everybody in blankets. Everyone
was just outside with nothing, and then everyone had hot
breakfast and a blanket, and it just there was a shift,
and I remember just that moment. It stuck in my head.
And then also I talked with Red Cross person once
about just blood donations and learned a lot about that,
(22:53):
and it's like, oh, that's interesting. And then I married
a guy in the military actually, and I learned about
how the Red Cross supports military families as well, and
so that's a real passion for mine as well. And
so it started to be this kind of pieces of
our mission started to come into my life from different
(23:13):
directions and really built up a passion for this organization
that I had seen you good in multiple facets of
my life, and so when there was an opportunity to
be a part of telling that story of what the
Red Cross does, I absolutely was excited to see that.
And I've worked with the Red Cross now for about
(23:34):
four years and I've loved it.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It's been incredible to be a part of that's absolutely amazing,
and that's real grassroots transition for you right there totally.
And respect the journalistic side of it too, being in
radio myself and having been a reporter in the past too,
so I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I've been drawn by stories that I've seen as well,
so I appreciate that a lot. Okay, I'm going to
close out with one more opportunity for you to tell
me exactly where people can go for any sort of donations, resources,
anywhere to go.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Just give it all one more time, Okay.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
The best place to start is Redcross dot Org. You
can find local volunteer opportunities, you can find blood drives,
you can find all of our things there. But we
also have multiple apps that you can download. So we
have a free blood donor app where you can download
that and find blood drives near you sign up. You
can track your blood donation in that app and see
(24:34):
where it ends us.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Cool feature. Yeah, I love that feature me too, So
I always encouraged that we have emergency app as well
for just preparedness tips. We talked a little bit about
preparedness and you'll find that on our Redcross dot org
a website, but we have an app for emergency preparedness,
so feel free to download that For some free resources
on being prepared in your community as well, and volunteer opportunities.
(25:00):
We're always looking for those as well, so feel free
to go online. You can also always call us with
any questions one eight hundred Red Across to get started
volunteering or to ask questions about how you can help.
We'd love to talk with you about our mission and
talk more so. Yeah, thank you so much for having
me on today and for the opportunity to speak about
our mission. It's close to my heart and so thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Thank you so much for your time again. Abby Walker,
Northwest Regional Communications director for the Red Cross. There you go, folks,
get out there, do whatever you can to help. Abby,
thank you so much, not just for joining me, but
for everything that you do. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
All right.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
You've been listening to Seattle Voice, presented by iHeartRadio Seattle.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I'm Jessaman McIntyre.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
For show ideas or to find out how your voice
can be heard, email Seattle Voice at Iheartme
And this is Jessaman McIntyre, your hosts of Seattle Voice,
your Community Voice presented by iHeartRadio Seattle, and here to
tell us more about what you can do during this
time a crisis in Los Angeles to help those in need.
It's Abby Walker, our local Northwest regional communications director for
Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Abby, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Really really appreciate it and everything that you do. And
there are people that might not know exactly what you do.
So can you tell me a little bit about your
position at the Red Cross, how long you've been there
and the communities you serve here in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, so have I work on the communications team here
in the Northwest region. So the Northwest region of the
American Red Cross covers Washington State and a couple of
the northern counties in northern Idaho. And our mission is
to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies,
and so we do that through disaster relief. And here
(00:56):
in Washington State we a lot of times that shows
its space when we're responding to home fires or other disasters.
We have wildfires, we have flooding here, and so we
respond to disasters, but we also have other branches of
our mission as well. We collect forty percent of the
nation's blood supply. We work with military families on military
(01:17):
installations and active duty service members to provide help and
resources for them. We also train on CPR and train
life saving skills, and so we have a lot of
different areas that we really work to support that mission.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
That's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I didn't know that you would offer that kind of training,
you know, first aid or CPR and things like that.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
How can people sign up for that?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
And is it a limited amount of space and time
that you're able to provide that.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So we have classes happening year round. So the best
way to figure out what might work for you is
to go to redcrops dot org slash take a class
and you can see what different classes are offered near
you and what time, so you can typically find one
within the next couple of weeks or months that you
can go and get CPR certified or first Aid certified.
I just did mine last year, and you know, it's
(02:07):
a great reminder of the skills that you need when
things are when you're facing an emergency and things are scary.
It's nice to have.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That refresher right and it doesn't have to be a
large scale one. You could just be at a certain
place at a certain time and need those skills and
be able to help out emergency big or small. Could
be one person and that's really amazing. I had no
idea that you could do that. And where can people
go to sign up for those red Cross.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Dot org slash take a class online. You can just
go to red Cross dot org and find your way
from there, but take a class after the splash, we'll
get you there.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Thank you very much for that. So note that down.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Folks, Please if you're driving, don't write it down, but
you can listen back to this podcast once it is
once it's posted, and get the resources that you need again.
Abby Walker, Northwest Regional communications director for the Red Cross
here in the Pacific Northwest. Now Abby, on a national level, obviously,
the LA fires is a huge crisis that we're all
(03:04):
paying attention to nationwide right now. And you know we
have been encouraging our listeners to donate. We have a
link on our website nine three to three kjar dot
com here and our entire iHeart Cluster has individual links
as well, So there is a lot of questions.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
There are a lot of.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Questions when it comes to things like this because people
want to do something and they can't physically go, they
can't help these people out of the fire. There's a
ton of boots on the ground there that are doing so.
So you know, we encourage this donation. A lot of
questions about it are where do those resources go? What
exactly am I donating to? You know, it's great, but
(03:45):
I'd like you to take a deep dive into where
the resources are allocated when it comes to actually the
physical help that the people who are suffering from an
emergency provide.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah, there are a lot of ways that the Red
Cross helps during disaster like this and how your donations
support our work. And so starting from the beginning, the
Red Cross is there as soon as these disaster strikes,
So as soon as those fires start to burn, the
Red Cross is there working with partners and opening shelters
so that anyone who had to evacuate had a safe
(04:18):
place to go. We right now have more than seven
hundred and fifty people staying in Red Cross shelters in
the LA area. And so that's the very primary start
of our mission. We also send volunteers and staff members
into the area to be able to support so here
in Washington right now we have around nineteen of our
(04:39):
local team members who are down in southern California helping
on this disaster response. We send skilled workers in to
make sure that we are having all the logistics. We
have mental health workers, we have disaster health workers, and
nurses go in to help families when they leave a
disaster are setting like this, They come into the shelter,
(05:01):
they've lost everything. It's heartbreaking and it's traumatic, and so
we want to be there to not only supply those
primary needs of shelter meals support, but also talk with
them individually about what they've lost and maybe prescription medications
were lost, we can work to refill those medications. And
then as we move forward, you know, we're a week
(05:23):
past when these fires started and right now we're still
seeing evacuation order. So we're still very focused on housing
and making sure that people have a safe place to stay.
But we do start to shift into recovery mode in
the weeks ahead, and so we'll start to work and
provide financial assistance to those who lost their homes. And
just start that road to recovery that we know is
(05:44):
going to be long.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Wow, that is something that to be honest, I wouldn't
have thought about prescription medication. You know, there's just so
many lose everything and a lot of those are basic,
you know, survival needs. If it comes to something like that, again,
Abbe Walker here, Northwest Regional communications director for the Red Cross,
and this is Jessamin McIntyre, your host of Seattle Voice. Abby,
(06:06):
I know that there must be some huge unit within
the Red Cross that has to allocate those funds, and
that is a huge task. When you talk about all
the different resources that you provide down to physical, to
emotional and beyond and recovery, can you tell me a
little bit about what that team would do when it
comes to allocating the resources.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So our teams, first of all, if anyone who is
looking to give financial donations, you can allocate where you
want your money to go, and our teams make sure
that we are making sure that that goes exactly where
you're asking it to go. So you can donate to
just disaster relief in general, and that's going to help
support kind of all the areas that I that I
(06:52):
spoke to you about, and that supports our ability to
send volunteers to a disaster scene to respond and help
families individually. You can also support the California wildfire specifically
in our disaster response there, and you can also donate
to other areas of our mission like I mentioned earlier,
our blood donation and other areas of our mission too,
(07:14):
So you have the ability to kind of choose where
you want those donor dollars to go, and we absolutely
honor that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
That is really interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I worked for a while with Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
and that was something too, because some people wanted research,
some people wanted to go to go towards care, and
I think that is encouraging for people because you're not
just throwing money and not knowing where it's going. Again,
people can donate at nine three three kjar dot com.
There is a donation site. It goes directly to the
Red Cross. We are encouraging listeners if they want to
(07:43):
do something to do that. And now you can actually
donate to a specific cause within that branch. So thank
you Abby for that. That is really interesting. Now I
kind of want to talk a little bit locally here.
You know you do work right here in Csattle for
the Northwest region, and I know that we're focusing on
Los Angeles, but you guys are twenty four to seven here.
(08:06):
Can you tell me a little bit about what you
guys do here within the Red Cross, just here in
the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yeah, we stay busy here as well within Washington State,
and we have hundreds of volunteers here who are working
twenty four to seven to make sure that families here
are taken care of. So we have blood drives that
are happening throughout the year, and we have volunteers who
are always on standbys to respond to disasters.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Most of our local disasters are home fires. We respond
often to home fires, and so we have volunteer teams
who will go to those home fires and provide resources
to the families who may have lost their home there.
We're also ready to respond if there are already large
scale disasters in our region as well. If we do
see wildfires here, as we know we're prone to see
(08:58):
this type of this time of year. If we see flooding,
we have the resources available to support families who are
going through that as well. And also military I mentioned
earlier we work with our service the Armedforces Team. We
have multiple military installations in Washington State, and so we
work with military families, not just active duty service members,
(09:18):
but we work with their families to make sure that
they're supported. We have the ability to message between a
deployed service member and their families at home, and so
we do a lot of work with our local military
families as well. So then, of course the life saving training.
We have trainings happening all throughout the year, so we
(09:38):
stay busy just making sure that we're here with our community,
standing by our community to make our community safer at
the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Abbie Walker joining me Northwest Regional Communications director for the
Red Cross on Seattle Voice Jessavan McIntyre with you. It
sounds like I'm hearing a lot of proactivity and not reactivity,
which is kind of something amazing because in any place
in the world right now, I see a lot of
reaction and not proactivity. So, yeah, do you start. I mean,
(10:11):
this has to be a perpetual thing. Is at the
start of the year, is there something that you guys
focus on, like, Okay, we have to prepare for this,
we have to prepare for that or is it year
round you're just getting more and more ready and learning
and evolving.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
It's year round. We are always looking to learn how
we can be better and better support our communities. We
have worked recently, just knowing how wildfires are a threat
in Washington State to develop more preparedness resources around wildfire support.
So we do preparedness with home fires, and we install
(10:45):
free smoke alarms and homes that need them. And now
we've branched out to do preparedness messaging for wild buyers
and really going out into communities and talking with homeowners
about how they can make their land a little bit
better and safer from the threat of wildfires. So we're
always That's just one example of how we're always thinking
of how can we better prepare because every disaster we
(11:07):
see is something to learn from, and we know that
they're a very difficult time and so any way that
we can be proactive before we get into that situation
is ultimately going to make our families safer, and so
we are doing that year round. And blood donations is
another branch that this is really important as well, because
when there's an emergency and someone needs blood, they need
(11:30):
it right now, and so we have to be proactive
and make sure that we have blood stocked on the
shelves so that anyone who is facing an emergency has
that care that they need. So that's another area that
it's really really important to be proactive and continue to
look for opportunities where we can grow. January is National
Blood donor Month, and so we are very aware of that.
(11:51):
And you know, there's a lot going on in the world,
but disasters do impact blood donations too, and we've already
seen hundreds of blood donations go uncle coted because of
wildfires and because of cold weather happening on the East Coast,
and so it's important to just note that as well,
that disasters have an impact on our ability to do
(12:11):
that too. So if people here in Washington who are
thinking how can I help, that's another great way to
help that you might not think of. It's roll up
to sleeve in and give blood because some places in
the country right now are unable to do that, and
so for us here in Washington, where we can, it's
a great way to help.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
That is really great.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
And I wanted to touch in on blood donations as well,
because you know, you mentioned that January is blood donation month,
and there are these big pushes throughout the year at
certain times for blood donations. But I feel like from
what I've heard from working with Blood Works Northwest in
the past, that there's always a shortage.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Is that true?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
There's always in need.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I'll say that, okay, always.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Always needing it because it's not something we can make right.
We fully rely on donors, and so we know that
there are certain times of year where we will see
lolls just based on you know, summer travel or winter
travel or holidays. We have seen trends over time, but
(13:15):
ultimately we are constantly seeing a need because now on
top of that, we're seeing more frequent disasters happening across
the country, and so we need to be even more
proactive and prepared to collect and make sure those shelves
are stocked in the hospitals.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Thank you very much for that, because I do try
to donate. I have the Universal Donor and I haven't
been in about a year and a half. So you
just motivated me to get my butt down there.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
To thank you guys.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yes, I'm glad to hear it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
There's never a bad time in my mind, Abby Walker,
Regional Northwest Regional Communications director for Red Cross here with
Jessaman McIntyre on Seattle Voice. Now, we've talked a lot
about donations, where they go, how they're allocated, But a
lot of people just clean out their closets they I mean,
I live through nine to eleven. I remember my dad
just going to the store and buying a bunch of
tools at home depot and sending them to the city.
(14:08):
People you know, have blankets and gloves and whatever the disaster,
they just want to donate them. Now, can you tell
us a little bit about either whether Red Cross accepts
them or who does it not.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, it's a great question because we know that people
want to help. People are generous here in Washington. They
want to do everything that they can to help after
a disaster, and our first priority as the Red Cross,
as we touched on earlier, is to provide shelter and
support for those who are affected. And so for us,
financial donations are the quickest and best way to help
(14:43):
those and we touched on just how that might be used,
like replacing lost items or prescription medications. Those are very
specific and unique needs for each individual, and so that's
where those financial donations enable us to quickly get that help,
very specific help to each person, whereas donations of clothing
(15:04):
or household items can divert kind of away from our mission.
And so we really ask for those financial donations right
now as we're really working hard to make sure that
these families have support. When it's possible, we can partner
with other organizations that manage donations of goods as part
of their primary mission. And right now we're asking anyone
(15:24):
who's looking to give donations of household goods or clothing
to call two to one one and you can find
out which organizations are accepting those types of donations.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
That's great, two one one out there.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
If you have physical things that you would like to donate,
they probably and it's multiple organizations.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yes, Yes, that's the place you can go to find
out which different organizations are accepting different donations.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right and it doesn't have to be a large scale
disaster either, I imagine, just like blood, there's always a need.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yes, of course, yes, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Abby Walker, Northwest Regional Communications director for the Rag Cross. Now, Abby,
I like to talk to people every single show that
I do about the starfish story.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
It's kind of my thing. I love it so much.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But I'll tell you the story, and I want to
ask if you can think of one starfish in your life.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So it's a poem that a poem, short.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Story, whatever you want to call it, that my mom
used to read to me when I was younger. And
so there is a young girl on a beach and
there's hundreds and hundreds of starfish washed up, and this
little girl just starts flinging them one by one into
the sea, and an older gentleman walks by and says,
what are you doing. You know it, You know you
can't save all of these, it doesn't matter. And she
(16:45):
flings one into the sea right in front of him
and said it matters to that one. And then one
iteration of this story has him join in and start
flinging starfish as well. And I just love that story
because it doesn't matter if you're a large scale or
small scale, there's someone that you can impact positively and
every single day and throughout your work with the Red Cross.
(17:06):
I was wondering if you have a time, a person,
or a group of people, a family, anything that you'd
like to share as a starfish story.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Oh, my gosh, this yeah, I mean working for the
Red Cross, you see these incredible stories happen every day
that just really inspire me to be the best person
I can be. Early on when we were chatting, you
mentioned just a CPR class, and it doesn't always have
(17:36):
to be, you know, somewhere public. It could just be
one person. And I remember a story just last year
that we had of a grandmother who had taken one
of our CPR classes and then just weeks later her
knew she was a grandmother. She was just had a
grand baby less than a year old, and that grand
(17:57):
baby started to turn blue, and she is able to
use that CPR training that she had just had and
was able to save her grand baby splice after just
so small And I still get goosebumps just thinking about
stories like that of how one class or one small
thing really makes a huge difference in a family. And
(18:19):
I love being a part of an organization that makes
that their mission to make sure that we're all better
and prepared for what comes our way, so that we
can keep our families and our loved ones safe. And
that's the first thought. But I think I could talk
to you the rest of the day about different things
(18:39):
within the Red Cross that I've been able and honored
to be a part of and to see and to
see unfold the help the helpers that we see come
out every day, from just rolling up a sleeve and
giving blood to dropping everything and flying to California and
making sure that families have support. The selflessness that shows
(19:04):
up in this organization is why I'm a part of it.
I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Abby Walker, Northwest Regional Communications director for the Red Cross.
And I'm learning a lot right now. I mean, I
see Red Cross come out. I mean, you know nine
to eleven Hurricane Katrina. I just remember I was bartending
at the time, having a donation. We set up a
hub where people could donate. It was all Red Cross.
But there's a lot more that I didn't know about
(19:30):
this organization, and I bet our listeners didn't know either,
So this is pretty amazing. And in that vein, I
know that we talked about donations and where people can
allocate physical resources as well, but are there volunteer opportunities?
I imagine that, especially during this time, people would want
to know.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's a great segue to speak about just the different
branches of our mission and then talk a little bit
about volunteer opportunities because ninety percent of our workforce is
volunteers WO and we've touched on some of the different
missions that we have playing out, and so truly, no
matter your skill set and no matter your interests, we
(20:12):
have a place for you, and so we are always
looking for more volunteers. We are always looking for volunteers
to serve on our disaster relief teams and be that
helping hand when someone has a home fire, we see
wildfires in Washington, or who see disasters across the country,
and not everyone is available to deploy or to travel
(20:35):
for volunteer work. And so we have volunteer opportunities within
our blood sector and we need people who can help
us to check in blood donors and be a welcoming face.
And they're called blood donor ambassadors and they help us
to make sure that blood drives go smoothly. We're always
looking for partners to help us host blood drives in
different areas so that we can reach more people as well.
(20:58):
We have volunteer opportunities with in our service, the Armed
Forces teams and working with military families and giving some
resiliency resources to military families. I work with a team
of volunteers. I have thirty volunteers on my communications team
who help us to tell the Red Cross story and
make sure that we're following up with our volunteers and
(21:19):
finding their starfish stories and finding out what makes them
passionate about the Red Cross and telling those stories across
our region as well. So really, for any skill set
where we have a place for you, I can guarantee it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
That sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Even just being a welcoming face for people who might
be nervous giving blood, that is enough and you do
need that. Can you tell me a little bit about
how you got involved with Red Cross?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Oh, I would love to thank you. So. I was
formerly a journalist actually before I came to the Red Cross,
and I got to see the Red Cross show up
many times my life. And the first time that really
stuck out to me was a large apartment fire in
an area I was covering as a reporter and it
(22:08):
was really tough apartment fire, and everyone was outside and
it happened overnight and we were all there and tired,
and I remember the Red Cross showed up and it
was this moment of hope that when they did, and
it just shifted. I'd been there since one in the morning,
and it was like a couple hours later and the
(22:29):
Red Cross showed up and wrapped everybody in blankets. Everyone
was just outside with nothing, and then everyone had hot
breakfast and a blanket, and it just there was a shift,
and I remember just that moment. It stuck in my head.
And then also I talked with Red Cross person once
about just blood donations and learned a lot about that,
(22:53):
and it's like, oh, that's interesting. And then I married
a guy in the military actually, and I learned about
how the Red Cross supports military families as well, and
so that's a real passion for mine as well. And
so it started to be this kind of pieces of
our mission started to come into my life from different
(23:13):
directions and really built up a passion for this organization
that I had seen you good in multiple facets of
my life, and so when there was an opportunity to
be a part of telling that story of what the
Red Cross does, I absolutely was excited to see that.
And I've worked with the Red Cross now for about
(23:34):
four years and I've loved it.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It's been incredible to be a part of that's absolutely amazing,
and that's real grassroots transition for you right there totally.
And respect the journalistic side of it too, being in
radio myself and having been a reporter in the past too,
so I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I've been drawn by stories that I've seen as well,
so I appreciate that a lot. Okay, I'm going to
close out with one more opportunity for you to tell
me exactly where people can go for any sort of donations, resources,
anywhere to go.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Just give it all one more time, Okay.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
The best place to start is Redcross dot Org. You
can find local volunteer opportunities, you can find blood drives,
you can find all of our things there. But we
also have multiple apps that you can download. So we
have a free blood donor app where you can download
that and find blood drives near you sign up. You
can track your blood donation in that app and see
(24:34):
where it ends us.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Cool feature. Yeah, I love that feature me too, So
I always encouraged that we have emergency app as well
for just preparedness tips. We talked a little bit about
preparedness and you'll find that on our Redcross dot org
a website, but we have an app for emergency preparedness,
so feel free to download that For some free resources
on being prepared in your community as well, and volunteer opportunities.
(25:00):
We're always looking for those as well, so feel free
to go online. You can also always call us with
any questions one eight hundred Red Across to get started
volunteering or to ask questions about how you can help.
We'd love to talk with you about our mission and
talk more so. Yeah, thank you so much for having
me on today and for the opportunity to speak about
our mission. It's close to my heart and so thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Thank you so much for your time again. Abby Walker,
Northwest Regional Communications director for the Red Cross. There you go, folks,
get out there, do whatever you can to help. Abby,
thank you so much, not just for joining me, but
for everything that you do. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
All right.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
You've been listening to Seattle Voice, presented by iHeartRadio Seattle.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I'm Jessaman McIntyre.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
For show ideas or to find out how your voice
can be heard, email Seattle Voice at Iheartme
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