The New Year is a great time to evaluate your priorities and begin new adventures. If you’re looking to improve your health, expand your social circle, and build new skills, volunteering with the Red Cross may be the perfect new experience to dive into in 2015. And if you’re already among our amazing cohort of volunteers, this may be just the time to explore a new opportunity.
Why Volunteer?
Volunteering has many benefits – it allows you to expand your skill set, meet new people, have fun, and make a difference in your community. But did you know it also has positive health benefits? A Corporation for National and Community Service report found that volunteering leads to better health, including lower mortality rates and lower instances of heart disease. So, if your New Year’s list includes hitting the gym and eating more veggies, consider volunteering as another (and more fun) way to improve your health.
Why the Red Cross?
Volunteers are so important to the Red Cross that they’re right in our mission statement:
The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.
Red Cross volunteers are both generous and committed. In the past 6 months, volunteers from the Minnesota Region have devoted over 57,000 hours to the Red Cross mission – a value of over $1.3 million to the organization and our community.*
What Can I Do?
The Red Cross has a wide variety of volunteer opportunities – from teaching CPR/First Aid courses and to responding to local disasters, to assisting with fix-it projects around our buildings. You can check out the opportunities listed below, and find a more complete overview of opportunities on our website. If you’re ready to get started, you can apply here.
If you already volunteer with the Red Cross but would like to get more involved (or try something different), we have some great new opportunities available:
Volunteer Champion – The Volunteer Services Department is seeking Volunteer Champions to support and implement ways to recognize, retain, and increase satisfaction of volunteers.
Disaster Action Team (DAT) Administrator – The Disaster Services Department is seeking a DAT Administrator volunteer to manage the DAT calendars, communicate schedules with after-hours answering service, monitor DAT schedules to ensure ongoing on-call coverage, and enter response data after an event.
Donor Appreciation Volunteer – The Financial Development Department is seeking volunteers to thank donors for giving generously to the American Red Cross.
Latino Outreach Volunteer – The Preparedness Department is seeking volunteers to go to a variety of events in the Latino community and have conversations with individuals and families about the importance of being prepared. Must be fluent in Spanish.
Current volunteers can view full job descriptions and express interest in any of these opportunities on Volunteer Connection or by emailing Kelly.Clark2@redcross.org.
Cheers to all Red Cross volunteers – both new and veteran – in 2015!
Lisa Joyslin,
American Red Cross Minnesota Region Volunteer Director
*According to the Independent Sector’s estimated value of volunteer time of $22.55 per hour.
American Red Cross 