Friday, September 30, 2016

My Red Cross Volunteer Story: Renee Anderson

By: Brigitte Yuille, volunteer 

As a military wife, new travel arrangements and adapting to new locations often becomes routine. Every few years, these wives prepare to pack everything up and go. For Renee Anderson, this meant moving her family twelve hundred miles away from Wichita, Kansas, and the comforts of the Midwest, to the U.S Capital, Washington D.C., also known as America’s political juggernaut. Here, she and her family would settle into a new home and a new way of life.

Anderson’s husband works for the U.S. Air Force. As “the trailing wife,” she wanted to acclimate to the new sites, sounds and culture. She wanted to meet new people and feel useful and productive. Anderson thought of the saying “knowledge is power, but knowledge shared is multiplied,” and she began considering all the skills, abilities and the talents she possessed. She wanted to use them for a good cause and to empower people; so, she decided to become a Red Cross volunteer.

“I saw an administrative opportunity, and Human Resources is my background,” she said. “And I thought, yeah I can do that. I would enjoy it.”

Anderson spends two days a week in the National Capital Region’s office and reviews all online applications for volunteers. In her role as a Volunteer Intake Manager, she is introduced to many like-minded people. People who want to use their talents and skills for a good cause. Anderson works to match their talents and skills with the right opportunities within the organization.

 “I come to work each day and I know I am going to be laughing and enjoying the team spirit,” she said.


Anderson shares that the highlight of her volunteer job is working with her volunteer management team, which includes Erica Canfield, Joe Cattaneo, Chetna Jha, Krutika Krishnan, Daniel Noh and Kemi Ogungbayo.

Share your time and talent by joining our team and becoming a Red Cross volunteer

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