Volunteers in Action

Note: The following appeal is now closed.  You can support our ongoing work by donating to the Canadian Red Cross

 

The Canadian Red Cross and the American Red Cross mobilize both trained disaster volunteers and local “walk in” volunteers to respond during a crisis.  The Canadian Red Cross will only send trained and experienced disaster services volunteers to work on American Red Cross operations.

For nearly one hundred years, our volunteers have fueled the humanitarian work of the Canadian Red Cross. Today we have a trained volunteer force of 30,000 with more than 7,000 volunteers specifically trained in disaster services.

Over the years, Canadian Red Cross and American Red Cross have built a strong bridge of disaster relief support to allow aid to flow smoothly between the two countries. In 1978, Canadian Red Cross and American Red Cross signed a memorandum of understanding to formalize this longstanding relationship.

“We need to be able to hit the ground running,” explains Don Shropshire, National Director of Disaster Services. “To make sure that we can fit into each others operations, we coordinate our training, exercises and our disaster management systems.”  

Since the agreement was signed, Canadian Red Cross has sent more than 4,000 volunteers to join the American Red Cross response to catastrophic events like Hurricane Andrew, September 11 and now, Hurricane Katrina.