Blood Services Volunteer of the Month: Hillary Sandy

Hillary Sandy has been providing excellent customer service to donors at the Dr. Charles R. Drew Donor Center in DC since March of 2013! She volunteers as a Blood Donor Ambassador most Fridays and several Mondays each month.

Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Hillary came to the area on her 21st birthday. Hillary is a nurse by profession and an Army veteran. She was mobilized to Germany in 2011, where she volunteered with the Red Cross and USO. Since her retirement, Hillary took the opportunity to volunteer with the American Red Cross.

Hillary comes from a family that is rooted in community service. Her mother was a nurse and midwife, and volunteer work has always been part of Hillary’s upbringing. In addition to volunteering at blood drives, Hillary volunteers at the VA and is a Deputy Representative for military families, veterans and active service members. She also volunteers at her church, and helps elderly people in her community with grocery shopping and transport to and from medical appointments.

On top of all her volunteer work, Hillary still finds time six days a week to exercise at Rock Creek Park. She loves to travel and has been all over the world, particularly Europe.

Hillary’s favorite aspect of volunteering at the donor center is talking with and helping the blood donors. “Being gracious to [the donors] for donating their blood” is of the utmost importance to her.

Please join us in congratulating Hillary Sandy – Blood Services Volunteer of the Month for June 2018!

My Red Cross Disaster Volunteer Story: Herb Brennen

Pictured: Herb Brennen (Right) and Don Brauninger (Left)

Written by: Rose Ellen O’Connor, volunteer 

Herb Brennen felt a deep emptiness when his wife Susan died of breast cancer 20 years ago. Then he gave up his job as a budget administrator at Lockheed Martin in an early buyout and he had unexpected time on his hands, which only heightened his loneliness. He was looking for things to do and saw an ad for the Red Cross. 

“It was after she had passed away that I got into the Red Cross,” Herb says. “Her death left a big hole in my life and I was looking for things to fill it.”

Herb was quickly hooked on the Red Cross. In 2002, he deployed to Louisiana for Hurricane Lili, the second most destructive hurricane of that year. Since then, he’s been on a dozen deployments to all sorts of disasters from wildfires and mudslides in California, to tornados in North Carolina and Tennessee, to hurricanes in New York and Florida. His shortest deployment lasted several days; his longest was two and a half months in Houston for Hurricane Katrina. That devastating hurricane struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, packing winds of up to 175 miles an hour. It killed 1,836 people and resulted in $81 billion in damage. An estimated 1.5 million people were evacuated and tens of thousands fled to shelter in Houston.

Herb’s task on deployment is to arrange short-term financial assistance for disaster victims. Sometimes he’s removed from one-on-one contact. In Houston, he oversaw 400 people inputting data to set up financial assistance for hurricane victims and didn’t interact with them. Other times, he deals directly with the hurricane survivors. He sees a lot of desperation and is rewarded by being able to help.

“When you’re in a situation where people are absolutely needy and you’re able to give them a credit card and they can then use that money to provide for their family, the look on their face tells it all,” Herb says. “Relief. And gratitude.”

Sometimes his volunteer work can be very emotional. Herb recalls a mother he helped in Chattanooga, TN. He was deployed there after heavy rains caused flooding and mudslides. She had an infant, two toddlers, and was fighting drug addiction. She became very emotional as she told her story to Herb and he couldn’t get her to stop crying, so he sent for a mental health expert to help her. After she calmed down, Herb began to tell her that he was arranging a hotel room for her and would give her a credit card so she could buy food for herself and the children and formula for the baby. She was so grateful, she grabbed his arms and thanked him and became very emotional again.

“She started to cry again and I got emotional,” Herb recalls. “And the three of us were sitting there, all of us practically crying.”

Herb says most of the hurricane clients used the financial aid to get out of the shelter. Some used the money to go back to their homes and wait for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to give them money to repair their houses, and others, having lost everything, used the money to move on.

In September 2004, Herb deployed to Fort Pierce, FL for Hurricane Frances. He remembers giving assistance to a mother of three small children who needed bus fare to get to family who could give them housing in another part of the state. In August, after Hurricane Harvey ravaged southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, killing at least 88 people and doing $125 billion in damage, Herb deployed to Houston. Among those needing financial assistance was a homeless man looking for fare to another part of Texas where a friend was going to give him a job. In each case, the recipient of the assistance was, again, relieved. 

“Total relief,” Herb says. “Because they were broke and they had no way to get out of the shelter and they wanted to leave the shelter and the assistance gave them the means to do it.”

When Herb isn’t taking off for floods or hurricanes or wildfires, he works local disaster relief in Prince William County, VA. He responds to house fires about once or twice a month. Asked what drives him, his answer is simple.

“I think the same thing that drives anyone as a volunteer for Red Cross,” Herb says. “You volunteer because you see there’s a need and there’s something you can do about it. I think every Red Cross volunteer will tell you the same thing.”

Herb lives in Haymarket, VA. He has two children, Adina and Greg, and five grandchildren. Before working for Lockheed Martin, he worked for 27 years as a budget administrator for IBM.

Our Red Cross Volunteer Story: Clown Judy and Clown Gary

Our Red Cross Volunteer Story: Clown Judy and Clown Gary

Written by: Rose Ellen O’Connor, volunteer

Judy Gleklen Kopff stood outside the Fisher House at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Christmas Eve 2004 and cried. She and her husband, Gary, were scheduled to entertain wounded warriors and their children in the Fisher House dining room. She’d been volunteering as a clown since 1996, but this was her first experience entertaining the wounded, and she was scared. She didn’t know how she’d deal with double and triple amputees.

She rang the doorbell, and as soon as she and Gary entered, a three-year-old boy jumped off his father’s lap and ran to her, crying, “Daddy! Daddy! It’s a clown!” He latched onto her leg and wouldn’t let go.

“I dried my tears as unobtrusively as possible and started making balloon animals for children who were creating an ever-expanding line leading to my husband and me,” Judy recalls. “At that moment, their parents were not patients missing arms or legs or eyes. They were parents enjoying the smiles and squeals of laughter of their children on Christmas Eve. We call ourselves Giggle Therapists.”

“Clown Judy,” now 71, and “Clown Gary,” now 72, learned in December 2004 about the Red Cross program at Walter Reed, underwent training and have been Red Cross volunteers ever since. They entertained at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC until it closed in 2011 and then switched to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.

Judy spent her Federal government career as a civilian working at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  After taking an early retirement at the age of 49 in 1996, she went back to work for the Secretary in 2003 to work on issues related to Iraq and Afghanistan.  Her final position as a chief of staff in an office dealing with battlefield contractors ended in 2008. Her intense, high profile jobs didn’t dampen her love of lightheartedness. It was at an office Christmas party in 2004 that she made her connection to Fisher House. Standing next to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s wife, Judy mentioned that she volunteered as a clown but didn’t have any place to entertain on Christmas. Mrs. Rumsfeld gave Judy the name of the person in charge at Walter Reed’s Fisher House.

These days Judy and Gary find themselves comfortable in any setting with wounded warriors and their families. For example, they’ve entertained at the Military Advanced Training Center (MATC), where the severely wounded go for intense physical and occupational therapy. At their first visit, they cautiously approached the head nurse and asked if they could enter MATC and interact with wounded warriors. The clowns received a thumbs up and entered accompanied by the head nurse’s service dog, who seemed to be saying, “These clowns are OK to be with you.”

The head nurse explained that this was the toughest physical therapy for young warriors now fitted with new arms and/or new legs and working hard for many hours at a time.  Clown Judy and Clown Gary were invited to distract the patients as they entered in full clown regalia, while carefully watched by MATC staff and the head service dog.

About four years ago, they were again at MATC and saw two patients – both double amputees -- lying on their stomachs on cots next to one another and working with physical therapists. Clown Gary thought one was asleep, so he started to show the other one a card trick. The patient they thought had been asleep turned and said, “Hey, I know that trick.” Gary then handed him the deck of magic cards and was relieved and pleased to have the young USMC corporal take over the magic demonstration for his band of brothers.

“We just watched,” Judy says. “We all were having fun, and the head nurse’s goal was met because our antics distracted the severely wounded patients for a few minutes from yet another long day learning how to walk on new prosthetic legs or how to prepare to hold their young children with new prosthetic arms.”

Gary walks the Walter Reed corridors “locked and loaded” with his multicolored squirt gun, which cannot fool the wounded warriors who know all too well the appearance of real guns.  He invites mayhem as he offers the use of his squirt gun to some patients.  As a highly decorated USMC General was walking amidst injured Marines who were perhaps one-third his age, Clown Gary mischievously whispered, “Anyone want to squirt the General?” One young double amputee seized the opportunity. 

“As the squirt gun did its worst, both men, as well as nearby staff and other patients, all broke into loud laughter,” Judy recalls.

Gary says, “When I get such laughter, it makes me feel that my mission is being accomplished. We don’t get paid in coin. We get paid in laughs.”

Sometimes the laughter and smiles are mixed with tears. One summer Judy and Gary were at a barbeque for wounded warriors and their families. Gary was pumping up a balloon to shape into a dog for a young man in a wheelchair; he wanted the balloon dog for his young son. It was a hot day, and the balloon accidentally popped. The sound instantly took the young combat veteran back to his memory of being severely wounded by an IED in Afghanistan. The patient started to cry, as did Clown Gary. Impulsively, both men hugged each other.

“Don’t worry,” the patient said to Gary. “We need to keep going so I not only have a toy balloon for my son, but I can also move a step closer to learning how NOT to react to loud noises now that I’m stateside.”

Judy and Gary understand smiling through tears. In the mid-1980s, they tried to conceive five times through in vitro fertilization. Judy also underwent four major surgeries to open her fallopian tubes, and then they turned to a surrogate mother. She turned out to be a fraud.

“At that point, I decided no more. We’re not going to try any more to have a baby. My experience of not being able to have children was one of the most difficult, most painful experiences of my life,” Judy says.

Once the decision to stop trying to have children was made, Judy stepped up her volunteering, whereas Gary turned to serving on the Board of Outward Bound, where he first learned to mountain climb in his home state of Colorado.  His climbing took him to all seven continents as he climbed some of their highest mountains, including the Vinson Massif in the Antarctic in 1991 and Everest in 1992.

In 1996, Judy discovered clowning. She’s made balloon creations and performed silly magic tricks for orphans and polio patients in Vietnam, local pediatric cancer patients, DC firefighters and police, elementary school children, and teenaged Maasai warriors in Kenya. She’s also entertained nursing home residents, foster families, kids in homeless shelters, Johns Hopkins Medical School students, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and at the Million Mom March. Gary has accompanied her since his first venture to Walter Reed on Christmas Eve 2004.

“The joy in my heart when I see smiles on the faces of the people I entertain confirms that all my efforts are worthwhile,” Judy wrote for her upcoming Cornell University 50^th reunion book.

It’s not always joyful. Sometimes patients just want to talk, and Judy and Gary listen. “Some of their stories are overwhelming, and I sit and listen and cry,” Judy says.

Every so often their clowning can have big consequences. In December, Judy volunteered as a clown at an Easter Seals dinner reception, and a woman came up to her and told her that she had met her husband almost three years ago because of Judy. Clown Judy had made a balloon flower for the woman’s husband-to-be at the 2015 DOD Warrior Games in Quantico, VA (competitions for wounded, ill, and injured service members and veterans). He had used the flower to introduce himself to the woman, and now they’re married and have a baby.

“That made me cry,” Judy said, “but they were happy tears.”

It takes Judy three hours to transform herself into a clown. First, it takes her 45 minutes to an hour to make a three-foot tall hat out of balloons. Then she paints a big heart on each cheek, outlining in black eyeliner and coloring in with red lipstick. She attaches purple, gold, pink and black false eyelashes for the upper lashes and draws 10 long, black eyelashes out of eyeliner underneath each eye. She puts on her costume of polka dot bloomers, a red petticoat, a blouse emblazoned with clown decals, a puffy skirt with USMC stripes on the sides and a satin vest embroidered with “CLOWN JUDY” on the back.  Finally, she places a red foam ball on her nose and puts on a red wig.

Judy grew up a twin, the fourth of five children to Leo and Honey Gleklen. She was born a triplet, but one sister died when she was just a few months old. The family lived in Providence, RI, and Judy describes them as “silly, happy and openly affectionate, where kisses and laughter were the highlights of our daily lives.” The five children were always encouraged to help less fortunate people and to make them smile, she says, planting the seed for her becoming a clown many years later. They were encouraged to do volunteer work, and she started at age 6, performing ballet recitals and singing with her twin sister at nursing homes. She was also a Red Cross Candy Striper in high school and did a variety of volunteer work as an undergraduate at Cornell University.  Judy’s mom was always active in non-profit organizations, and she and her siblings continue that tradition.

Gary retired several years ago from his work as a financial strategy consultant and expert witness in lawsuits helping unravel the mess made by some of the largest banks in the US and Europe.  He grew up in Denver with an older sister. His mom was a devoted Red Cross volunteer, called a Gray Lady. His parents, Joseph and Claire Kopff, stressed academics, and Gary went east to Yale College.  After graduation, he studied at Cornell’s Graduate School of Management, where he met Judy.  They married in Providence in 1969, after Judy finished graduate studies in art history in New York City.

Today, Judy and Gary find fulfillment in the volunteer work they do.

“It makes me feel good when I bring smiles to the faces of children and ‘children-at-heart,’ as I call the adults,” Judy says. “Most adults like to smile and like to feel good. And If I can make them and their families feel good for a few minutes so that they can forget their pain, then that’s a good thing.”

My IN THE BAG Red Cross Story: Alyce Phinney

Written by: Rose Ellen O’Connor, volunteer

On a spring morning two years ago, Alyce Phinney was waiting for the school bus at an Alexandria bus stop when she heard a neighbor’s house had caught fire. After loading her two boys on the bus, she drove to the neighbor’s house to see if she could help and ended up taking the family’s little girl to school. It seemed firetrucks were everywhere at the scene and the family looked distraught. They carried what they could gather from the house in garbage bags.

Alyce was proud, but not surprised, to see the Red Cross there. Every eight minutes the organization responds to a house fire. Red Crossers arranged lodging for the family, calmly told family members what they needed to do, and offered blankets and toiletry bags. Alyce was on her way that morning to a kick-off meeting for the upcoming fall IN THE BAG event, which auctions designer handbags to raise money for the Red Cross. She told committee members how moved she was to see the Red Cross instilling calm where there was palpable panic.

“Because at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about,” Alyce says. “We want to be proud of our event, we want to auction great looking handbags, but the most important thing is to be reminded why we do this work.”

IN THE BAG was started eight years ago by Red Cross volunteer Brenda Blisk. The committee solicits new or gently used designer handbags, among them Gucci, Kate Spade and Michael Kors. Last November the event auctioned 147 handbags, ranging in price from $200 to $1,350. The auction raised $133,000 in less than three hours.

Alyce, 44, is uniquely qualified to solicit handbags for the event. She has worked for 10 years in the handbag department at Neiman Marcus and has a close relationship with many of the women who buy purses from her. A longtime client, Dr. Marta Wilson, brought her to the event as a guest five years ago, thinking Alyce would have a great network for soliciting bags. She was right. Almost half of the bags sold at last year’s auction – 70 of 147 – came from Alyce’s contacts.

“I’m like a constant cheerleader. I send an email out to my clients. I talk about this event all the time at work,” Alyce says. “You know it’s hard to go to a client and say, ‘Hey, do you have eleven hundred and fifty dollars to contribute to the Red Cross?’ But it’s easy to say, ‘Do you have something in your closet that you’re not enjoying anymore? Do you want to donate it to help save a life?”

Alyce says clients are thankful for the chance to contribute.

“I’m grateful to them for giving,” Alyce says, “but on the flipside, as they are giving me the handbag, they always thank me for being involved in this so they can make this kind of contribution.”

She says she was “blown away” by the professionalism and attention to detail when she first came to the event five years ago. She was introduced to Brenda Blisk and asked if she could help. “I said if you’ll have me, I’ll make the commitment right here and now that I will serve on the committee for next year.”

She now co-chairs a subcommittee of 30 women who oversee handbags for the auction. Each of the women contributes a bag for the event. They also get contributions from companies and sometimes they get help from unexpected places. Two years ago, a woman from New York City found the charity on the internet. They never met her but she contributed a black vintage Hermes bag that sold for $3,000.

Most contributions, however, come through networking. One of Alyce’s clients, Carol Chill, had recently lost her husband and was sorting through her belongings. She found five bags she wanted to donate, including a 15-year-old Gucci brown tote that still had the tickets on it. It went for $1,150. It was on sale for $600 when Carol bought it, but its age made it vintage and thus more valuable.

“It had been sitting in her closet all those years, nobody enjoying it,” Alyce says. “She was tickled.”

Alyce and fellow committee members are now preparing for this year’s auction on November 16. Bags have to be solicited and then cleaned, sorted and tagged for the event. She’s made it a family affair. Her son Tobey, 10, helped clean and tag the bags last year, and her seven-year-old son, Lucas, helped clean. And they’ll be back this year, she says. “It’s a great way to do volunteer work with your children.”

For more information on this year’s auction, visit www.inthebagrc.com.

Blood Services Volunteer of the Month: Virgie Sullivan

Virgie Sullivan volunteers at the Dr. Charles R. Drew Donor Center in Washington, DC as a Blood Donor Ambassador. In addition to donating blood herself, Virgie can be relied upon to volunteer almost every Friday and has done so since 2005! 

Born in Wilson, NC, Virgie moved to the DC area for work in 1974. She has one daughter, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren! 

Virgie initially volunteered at blood drives at her place of employment starting in the 1990's. When she retired after 30 years of government service, she started helping out at the donor center and has been a fixture there ever since

In addition to her work with the Red Cross, Virgie volunteers very often for her church, where she helps with the food bank, cooks for special events, mentors young women, assists seniors and sings in the choir. Her free time consists of exercise, looking out for neighborhood children and taking trips to visit family in NC. Virgie is busy all the time! 

Meeting our blood donors and talking with them is what Virgie enjoys most about volunteering at blood drives. She finds it commendable that some of the donors wait for quite awhile and still have a pleasant attitude about donating blood. She enjoys talking to and thanking donors, and has gotten to know many donors by name.

Please join us in congratulating Virgie Sullivan – Volunteer of the Month for April 2018!

Our Walter Reed Volunteer Story: Karel, Therese & Carol

Written by: Rose Ellen O’Connor, volunteer

Karel Fick’s son, an Air Force Captain, was stationed overseas, moving in and out of Afghanistan in 2005, and she was endlessly worried about him. She was used to the military – her father was a Navy Lieutenant who talked about his service in World War II and her husband served as an Army Lieutenant in Vietnam – but that didn’t help because this was her son. “It’s a mother’s job to worry,” she says. Karel was relieved and grateful when he came home safely and decided she wanted to help other military moms. So she turned to the Red Cross and started volunteering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.

Therese Shell, Karel’s neighbor, heard her stories and decided she wanted to volunteer too. It was a good fit, she says, because her husband is a retired Navy Commander and her son is a Navy Lieutenant Commander.

Carol DeLeon wanted a change after 18 years as a volunteer in the White House correspondence department. A retired nurse, she wanted something in the health field and settled on Walter Reed.

Now all three women come together every Tuesday to try to make life a little more pleasant for the families of patients at Walter Reed. Their duties range from passing out basic needs items, such as clothing and toiletries, to asking hospital personnel for an update on a patient’s condition, to sitting and listening to a family member talk. They also hand out toiletries, give directions to local resources and explain how to get on the metro. If a family is in crisis, they’ll set up a room with snacks and water for them.

“Our goal is just to be soothing in a really stressful time,” says Karel. “We walk around the waiting room looking for families that might need a moral support. Usually, we let them talk and we tell them their patient is in the best place they could possibly be, you know, Walter Reed, and let them know we’re there if they need anything.”

Karel is the team leader for the Surgical Waiting Room and handles scheduling for all the volunteers. She works in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Carol, her co-team leader, helps with scheduling and works in the ICU, as well. Therese volunteers in the Surgical Waiting Room and brings in coffee and donuts every Tuesday. She also fills in for Karel or Carol if they can’t be in the ICU. “The coffee and donuts are a big hit,” Therese says. “I get that set up and everybody’s so happy to see it,” she says.

The volunteers can have a profound effect on a family. Last month, a retired Navy Commander was vacationing with his family in the Caribbean and had to be rushed to Walter Reed for emergency surgery. His wife and two adult sons followed him in. Karel was off and Therese was filling in for her. Carol and Therese brought sweat pants and sweat shirts for the family, along with toiletries. It was a no-brainer, they said.

“Coming from the Caribbean to this area in February was quite a shock,” Carol says. “We were making them a little more comfortable. They felt more secure that we were helping them.”

When the retired Navy Commander and his family left, they offered grateful praise for the volunteers specifically highlighting the ways in which they went out of their way to support their family, Marin Reynes, the Walter Reed volunteer supervisor says.

“Their feedback was solely focused on the Red Cross volunteers and the impact they had on their stay,” Marin says. “Karel, Carol and Therese may downplay their service, but they change lives every Tuesday.”

Sometimes things that seem so small can mean so much to the patients and family. The hospital is always dry, and patients and their family members are constantly looking for chap stick. Karel, Carol and Therese keep a ready supply.

“Somebody once said to me, you know handing out a chap stick or a comb or whatever is no big deal to you,” Karel says, “but to us it can make or break our day.”

Sometimes, the volunteers find themselves supporting family members in unusual and simple ways. A woman had been at her husband’s side for four days and hadn’t had a shower. Karel and Carol came to the rescue.

“We brought her some shampoo and conditioner and nice-smelling soap and then we found a social worker who found her a place to go take a bath,” Karel recalls. “And, boy, she felt fabulous.”

Volunteering can bring them to moments they treasure but never would have expected. Once the Pediatric ICU was looking for volunteers to hold a baby that had been removed from his home. He was very under-developed and needed to be held to learn how to form a bond. Karel and Carol were intrigued. They put on hospital gowns and masks and held the baby.

“He was very responsive,” Karel says. “It made us feel good. I mean we might have helped him make some pathways in his brain. He was too insecure to actually smile but he was getting there. The good news is he went home with his family and hopefully lives happily ever after.”

The volunteers constantly look for ways to connect with family members. A wounded soldier came into the hospital and was nonresponsive. His mother was with him all the time. So Karel and Carol started visiting her. Karel asked where she was from and the mom said Riverside, CA. Karel had lived in Orange County, CA. “We made a connection there and we would talk about California. That gave her comfort – something she could relate to.”

The son eventually came around and was discharged.

“By the time he left here, he was awake. He would look at us and smile,” Karel says. “So that was another happy ending.”

Therese tries to make connections with family members in the Surgical Waiting Room. They’re often agitated and the hours drag on as they wait for word of their loved one. She calls and gets updates for them and then just sits with them and tries to calm them. She tells them that scheduled surgeries sometimes get bumped by emergencies and that could explain the wait.

“We just like to feel that we’re soothing and taking some of the intrigue and worry away,” Therese says.

Karel and Carol take a similar approach in the ICU waiting room. A soldier was medevacked from Afghanistan to Walter Reed and his mother was waiting for him. She was distraught and they just sat with her and listened.

“Some people just need to talk, so we sat with her for quite a while,” Karel recalls. “And when we were getting up to leave she hugged us both and said thank you so much. That really touched me.”

Karel lives with her husband Robert and her cat Chessie in Gaithersburg, MD. She has two sons, Scott and Alex, and one grandchildren.

Carol lives with her husband, Leonardo, in Silver Spring, MD. She has four sons, Leo, Michael, Paul and Matthew, and five grandchildren.

Therese lives with her husband Mark in Gaithersburg, MD. She has two sons and a daughter, Jason, Justin and Christie, and three grandchildren with a fourth on the way.

My Red Cross Story: Chris Ullman

Written by: Rose Ellen O’Connor, volunteer
 
Chris Ullman is a world-champion whistler with a special fondness for the American Red Cross. Last fall, Chris performed at the American Red Cross in the National Capital Region’s headquarters in Fairfax, VA. At the time, volunteers and staff were caught up in the seemingly endless cycle of disasters, ranging from hurricanes to floods, and house fires to wildfires. Chris’s performance was a welcome break.

“People loved it because it’s joyous, sincere, and makes people smile,” Chris says. “They were excited about the performance because most people have never heard a champion whistler.”

Chris says he was inspired by the humanitarian work he saw being done in the National Capitol Region. In his book, Find Your Whistle: Simple Gifts Touch Hearts and Change Lives, Chris invites people to find their special talent and use it to help, one person at a time. He says it could be a motto for the Red Cross. 

“They’re the living message of my book, which is about using your gifts to make the world a better place,” Chris says. “Blood donors and staff and volunteers are all committed to sharing time and love and blood to help people in need.”

Chris’s first encounter with the Red Cross was as a senior at Berner High School in Massapequa, NY. The school sponsored a blood drive and, at age 18, Chris became a blood donor. He last gave blood a few weeks ago and at age 54, has donated 71 pints of blood.

“I have a civic duty to help people in need, so that’s why I donate blood,” Chris says.

Chris began whistling at age five and, according to his website, “whistled incessantly” while he delivered newspapers as a teen. He worked the open microphone circuit in the Washington, DC area in the 1980’s and 90’s, and jammed with jazz bands in college. In his memoir, Chris recounts his varied performances, including whistling for former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the Oval Office, appearing with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington and whistling at B.B. King’s club in Memphis, TN. Chris has also whistled the National Anthem at numerous national sporting events. He was inducted into the International Whistling Hall of fame in 2012.

He’s been featured on numerous television and radio programs, including the Tonight Show, the Today Show and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He’s also appeared in People Magazine, Time Magazine and The New York Times. His range of styles includes classical, blues, jazz, Broadway and rock.

Chris, who lives in Alexandria, VA, whistles “Happy Birthday” 525 times a year for friends and family, including his wife, Kristen, and his children, Alydia, 16; Justus, 14; and Aria Noel, 12. As for his day job, he’s director of global communications at The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest investment firms.

My Family's Red Cross Story: Robin Sullivan

Written by: Rose Ellen O’Connor, volunteer
 

Robin Sullivan’s very shy Aunt Caroline found a way to contribute to the Red Cross that suited her personality. She drove thousands of miles for the organization’s blood services program in Norfolk, VA, something she could do without having to engage with strangers. Despite kidney disease, she volunteered for 25 years until she died seven years ago.

It was an inspiration for Robin, who, along with her work colleagues, volunteers for the Red Cross in Loudoun and Prince William counties.

“Even when she was sick, she was volunteering,” Robin says. “The Red Cross turned out in droves to her funeral. That’s when you saw how beloved she was.”

Robin, 56, was further moved to help by her encounters with the Red Cross at disaster sites. Her husband, Kevin, and his brother, Tim, own Paul Davis Restoration of Northern, VA, a general contractor that provides emergency services to properties that have been damaged by fires, floods and other disasters. The company has 65 employees, including Robin and seven other family members.

“To see how the Red Cross brings total calm in the middle of chaos,” Robin says, “is a very moving experience.”

Robin recalls a house fire in Manassas, VA last fall. The family, two parents and three children, had managed to get out safely but everything they owned was destroyed. The children were crying and the family huddled together trying to comfort each other. The Red Cross arrived and arranged a hotel for the family for three nights, until their insurance took over.

“The Red Cross pulls up and they have blankets. They have water. They have everything,” Robin says. “You could see a sense of calm come over the family.

“They are servants,” Robin adds, “honest-to-goodness true servants. They are highly capable people with servant hearts. They are dedicated and kind. And they really help to bring calm to a chaotic situation.”

When Kevin and Tim Sullivan moved to new offices three-and-a-half years ago, they created a training room that seats 50 people. They built it thinking they could use it but that it could also serve charities, such as the Red Cross. The organization holds all of its Loudoun County training sessions, including CPR, babysitting and disaster relief, at the office. Robin says the Red Cross uses the room five to eight times a month free of charge.

Last fall, Robin and her family hosted their first blood drive in the room. They promoted it through social media and their own networks. The Red Cross brought “everything, everything,” Robin says, even background music. It was a joyous event, she says. A few weeks later, the Red Cross sent a thank-you note telling them they had saved more than 80 lives. Robin was so moved she signed up to do two blood drives a year.

“We were shocked when they told us,” Robin says. “It was really gratifying.”

Robin and her colleagues also volunteer for the Red Cross home fire safety campaign called Sound the Alarm. Its goal is to reduce home fire deaths and injuries by 25 percent by 2020. To do this, volunteers visit at risk neighborhoods, providing fire safety education, outfitting homes with free smoke alarms, and inspecting existing smoke alarms to ensure they work properly.  

“You’re in the home talking 20 minutes,” Robin says. “We leave not only making a friend but knowing that we’ve helped to make a whole family safer. It’s a terrific feeling.”

Robin lives with her husband and her dogs, Bowie and Cali, in Hamilton, VA. She has three children, all 20-something redheads. She counts her blessings, she says, among them the Red Cross.

“We are blessed to be part of this community and have the opportunity to work with the Red Cross,” Robin says. “We look at this as an absolute privilege."

“My Red Cross Experience As A Platelet Donor And A Disaster Action Team Volunteer”: Alan Vollman’s Story

Written by: Rosalind SE Carney, volunteer

Alan Vollman first started to donate blood to the Red Cross in 1971 when he was in graduate school in California. He had read an article describing how heart transplants were becoming more common, but the amount of blood required for these operations put a strain on local blood supplies. He continued to give blood during his first career as a public school teacher. At that time, donors could bank their blood and specify who could receive the units donated at no cost. Alan often chose family members of his school community when families made emergency requests for blood.

When Alan moved to Washington, DC years later, he sought out a Red Cross blood donation center near his downtown law office. On a slow workday, he would to go to donate blood -- a time to relax with a short nap on a comfortable recliner. Once he became a regular donor, volunteers encouraged him to donate platelets instead of whole blood. In the US, platelets are needed every 30 seconds as they are transfused into cancer, surgery, transplant, and blood disorder patients. 

The platelet donation process takes a little longer than a whole blood donation. Blood is taken from one arm, platelets are extracted by a machine, and the remaining blood components are returned to the other arm. Alan finds this downtime relaxing and uses it to listen to lectures on interesting topics or to work on his Spanish. One time, a friend gave him DVDs of the Best of Dave Chappelle to watch during the donation. Alan laughed so hard that he started to cry, but he was unable to wipe away the tears since needles were in his arms. Other people heard him laugh and gathered to watch the shows with him. By the end of the extraction process, streaks of salt marked his cheeks where the tears had evaporated.

Alan has been donating platelets for 15 years and still donates whole blood occasionally. These donations give him a positive feeling, and he enjoys receiving emails notifying him of the type of patient who received his donation. Alan says, “I have family and friends who have needed platelets. I have met parents whose children have received them. These people know how important platelets are and tell me that donors like me have kept them or their child alive. A couple of quiet hours on a cozy recliner can provide months or years to someone who could die without platelets.”

Alan has also been a volunteer with the Disaster Action Team (DAT) since 2009 thanks to encouragement from his wife, Ann. Ann is currently a volunteer in casework recovery planning at the Red Cross headquarters in Fairfax, VA. Ann has also volunteered with DAT for many local and national disasters since 2005. As a DAT volunteer, Alan has enjoyed meeting new people from all walks of life. Alan says, “What Red Cross volunteers have in common is that they all care about their community. Volunteers quickly learn that there is a lot of suffering in the neighborhoods of our wealthy National Capital Region. Some people are living on the edge, and no matter how small a fire or other home disaster may be, it is often a personal Katrina for that household.”

Alan’s message to someone considering volunteer work with the Red Cross is this: “Good deeds are the dues we pay for being members of our community.” As a friend once told him, “Giving money is not hard to do for some; money comes and goes. But time is a gift one can’t earn back; it is unconditional.” Or to put it in lawyer speak, “Money is fungible; time isn’t.”

Learn more about donating blood and platelets at www.redcrossblood.org.

“Volunteering With The Red Cross Helped Me Find A New Job”: Laura Song’s Story

Written by: Rosalind SE Carney, volunteer

Laura Song, a VA resident, decided to volunteer with the American Red Cross after she saw the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey. As many others were similarly inspired to volunteer at that time, the Red Cross volunteer connections website crashed due to the overwhelming response. Undeterred, Laura visited the American Red Cross in the National Capital Region Headquarters in Fairfax, VA.

The same day she visited the headquarters, other people came to offer their services too. Four new volunteers were put together into a newly created group to thank recent donors for their financial contributions to hurricane relief efforts. Within a week and a half, they thanked 30,000 donors by phone, personal emails or handwritten cards. They came up with the name "the gratitude gang" to describe their collective Red Cross role.

Laura found the experience of thanking people very fulfilling, and donors were touched to receive thanks from the Red Cross. Many donors said that they wished they could do more to help those suffering from the devastation caused by the hurricanes. The gratitude gang was so successful that several other Red Cross chapters across the nation will employ the same initiative.

Laura’s prior corporate management experience turned out to be well suited for a position that recently opened up in the Volunteer Services division of the Red Cross in the National Capital Region. Laura is now a Red Cross Volunteer Services Specialist, mainly focusing on volunteer engagement and helping facilitate outreach and recruitment of new volunteers.

Laura describes her new position as a very humbling and gratifying experience. She is learning more and more each day about Red Cross services in disaster relief, blood donation, assistance for the military, veterans and their families, training and certification, and international services. Laura always knew that helping others is her passion, but her new job has made her realize how much more she wants to do as a Red Cross employee.

The Red Cross currently has over 100 volunteer openings in the DMV area covering all aspects of Red Cross services. Learn More About Red Cross Volunteer opportunities.

Learn How Lazarus Integrated Red Cross Volunteer Experience Into His Professional Development.

Learn How Eric Found Volunteering With The Red Cross So Fulfilling, He Has Served For Almost 50 Years.

My Red Cross Blood Donor Story: Richard Stavros

Written by: Rosalind SE Carney, volunteer

Richard Stavros has donated blood regularly to the Red Cross for over a year. Richard was inspired to give blood though the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization that has a long-standing relationship with the Red Cross in the form of an annual blood drive. Another Knights of Columbus member, Dr. Joseph Provenzano, encouraged Richard to donate blood. At first, Richard was hesitant, remembering the times as a child when he used to run at the sight of a nurse holding a needle! However, Richard’s faith and desire to make a meaningful contribution to his community helped him override his fear, and he now donates whole blood every eight weeks.

Richard now uses the Red Cross Blood App to schedule appointments, keep track of his total donations and track the progress of each donation. As he is a registered donor, Richard can answer at home the general health questions required for each visit. Once he arrives at the donation center, he confirms the responses to the questions. This RapidPass® makes the process more time efficient for the donor. Richard also appreciates that he has a record of each “mini-physical” detailing body temperature, hemoglobin levels, pulse and blood pressure.

Knowing that each pint of blood can help more than one patient, Richard enjoys paying it forward and seeing the impactful results of his contribution. He recalls receiving an email in July 2017 informing him that his blood had been delivered to the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Richard intends to become a platelet donor, too. He also helps promote blood drives on social media to encourage former donors to return and new donors to contribute. 

Download The Blood App by Texting “BLOODAPP” to 90999 or Search “Red Cross Blood” in Your App Store.

Find A Local Blood Drive

My 35 Year Blood Donor Story: Miguel Mitchell

Interviewed by: Rosalind SE Carney, volunteer

Miguel Mitchell, a PhD organic chemist and Rockville, MD, resident talks to the Red Cross about his experience as a long-term blood donor. (Note: no part of this story constitutes medical advice.)

What motivates you to donate blood to the Red Cross?

“I have been a blood donor since 1982. My mother is a nurse and it was always a family expectation to help people. Donating blood is a great way to help people.”

How often do you donate blood?

“As often as I can. The donation periods are every 8 weeks for whole blood.”

Have there been any times when you have not been able to donate blood?

“Yes, it has happened on four occasions. I realized that my body was not hydrated enough each time. Being a chemist who understands physiology, I was able to develop a method that works for my own body. Now, on the day that I donate, I make sure to drink enough water and electrolytes and ensure that I have eaten. This is an important process as it is incredibly disappointing not to be able to donate and to have to wait until the next donation cycle.”

Can you briefly describe the process at the donation center?

“As I am already a registered donor, I have a brief assessment each time I donate. This involves answering questions on a screen about recent travel, diseases, and general physical health. Then, I have a mini-physical where someone checks my blood pressure, body temperature, pulse and does a test to determine hemoglobin levels in a small blood sample. Then I donate a pint of blood. The people working at the Rockville donation center are very professional and friendly.”

What message would you give to someone who is considering becoming a blood donor?

“I feel there is an assumption that blood donation is only really needed at times of natural disasters. That is not true; there is a constant need for blood. For example, car accidents happen on a daily basis or blood is needed for people undergoing surgery. Members of my own family have needed blood donations, so I am very sensitive to its importance.”

Do you have any suggestions regarding the Red Cross blood donation process?

“Yes. They used to give a certificate per gallon of blood donated, but they no longer do that. I would love to see it return as it is inspirational to look up your own achievement over time and it encourages you to continue. When life is stressful, any type of inspiration is helpful and donating blood is a constant source of inspiration to me.”

Learn More About Donating Blood to the Red Cross.