UNDATED (WTAQ) – The American Red Cross held its 2016 Giving Day on Thursday as officials hope to rally donations from the public.
“We’re asking all Americans to consider a gift to the American Red Cross so that we can continue on with our life saving mission,” says Northeast Wisconsin Chapter Executive Steve Hansen. “Delivering services like blood collections and responding to disasters.”
In Wisconsin, the Red Cross responds annually to nearly 900 disasters a year.
But volunteers in Wisconsin aren’t limited to just the Badger State. They get deployed to disasters nationwide, including the historic flooding happening in the Houston, Texas region.
“So far in Wisconsin we have 5 volunteers that have already left,” Hansen says. “This is such a large, massive disaster that will be going on quite some time unfortunately. So if we don’t have volunteers going out now, we’ll like have them going out into May.”
Volunteers will spend two to three weeks working in a given area, handling everything from mental health services, to delivering meals and assisting victims sign up for other services.
BROWN COUNTY SMOKE ALARMS
As part of a nationwide effort, the Red Cross is teaming up with multiple fire departments and community partners to reduce deaths and injuries due to home fires in Brown County on Saturday.
Volunteers will go door-to-door teaching people how to be prepared for home fires and install smoke alarms where needed.
“Our goal on Saturday is to install 1,000 smoke alarms in Brown County homes on a single day,” Hansen says. “We have about 150 volunteers that have signed up to do this. They’ll go out in teams, in designated higher risk areas in our communities.”
The effort is part of an ongoing, five-year campaign by the American Red Cross to reduce deaths and injuries caused by home fires by 25 percent. Home fires are the most common disaster to which the Red Cross responds – in fact, they respond to an average of nearly 70,000 home fires each year nationwide. Seven times a day someone in this country dies in a fire.
“Each smoke alarm has the potential to save a life,” says Hansen.
You can pre-register to get a free smoke alarm and tutorial here.
The teams will be out in Brown County from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday with ladders and drills, 10-year lithium battery smoke alarms and information on how to prevent fires and how to make a family escape plan.
