Clean Sweep for Calgary Red Cross Office
After recent renovations and years of ‘just making do’, the Calgary Red Cross office finally heeded the call and got organized! Ten professional organizers descended on the office during National Organizing Week (May 1-7) to help us out with our offices, our volunteer spaces and most importantly, our storage room. The room, which holds many of our important disaster kits and information items, was in need of professional help after 2005, when the Red Cross responded to a number of local and international disasters. 
“BEFORE” storage room photos
The Calgary chapter of the Professional Organizers in Canada started on our storage room bright and early. They spent most of the morning down in our basement, turning a loosely organized room into a clean, efficient storage space within a matter of hours. “Wow!” said Shirley Diaz, Regional Director, “This will make it so much easier for volunteers and staff to find everything they need.”
Organizers in action in Caglary storage room.
The average Canadian household receives 70 pounds of addressed mail each year. It’s impossible to measure how much one of the largest humanitarian aid organizations in the country, the Canadian Red Cross, receives. “People don’t have to live in chaos,” said Bonnie Fraser of Be Organized. “And for a non-profit organization like the Red Cross, it really is a matter of making everything simpler to find.”
“AFTER” storage room photo
At the end of the day, the organizers had finished the storage space and organized the volunteer workstations. A truck from 1-800-GOTJUNK was on hand to take over 1,700 pounds of junk to recycling station and the landfill as part of the organizing effort. 
1-800-GOT-JUNK takes it away at the end of the day.
The Calgary Red Cross office is now a smoothly running machine thanks to the Professional Organizers in Canada and 1-800-GOTJUNK.
