Last week I watched a documentary called Kamp Katrina, directed by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon. The film is a gritty, raw, and painfully realistic look at the months following Hurricane Katrina and her devastating wrath. The story is told through the eyes of Ms. Pearl, an eccentric, yet compassionate local who opens her backyard to a dozen strangers left homeless by the storm. Together Ms. Pearl and the survivors establish a tent community that they dub “Kamp Katrina.” Focusing primarily on the residents and their self-destructive habits, we are invited into the community’s post-Katrina lifestyle. And with substance abuse, violence, unfair politics, and little visible assistance, it’s not necessarily someplace we want to be.

Another exciting week in St. Louis has flown by.  This past week has made me realize even more what a great privilege it is to be working with the Red Cross as the AmeriCorps preparedness member. It really opened my eyes as to how much the Red Cross affects people. One of my special projects this week was to purchase items to fill gift bags for 120 veterans that reside at our local veterans hospitals.

As summer fell into the crisp days of autumn, and our clocks fell back an hour, I found myself falling into a long overdue list of chores last week. My first job - cleaning the basement. What seemed like a daunting task turned out pleasantly after rediscovering my old childhood book collection. There were Boxcar Kids and Bernstein Bears, nursery rhymes, and my personal favorite, the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. I loved those! In the books, everything was a chain reaction created by you. When you got to the end of a section you had a choice to make- either jump to a new page or continue reading- and you made selections all the way until you had chosen your own ending. They were practically different stories every time you opened the book.

As Red Cross AmeriCorps National Preparedness and Response Corp members, Danae and I have the opportunity to work on service projects with other non-profit organizations in St. Louis area. This week we are setting up dates to work with Habitat for Humanity. We are excited to work with other volunteers from the St. Louis area in building a family a home!  We will also be working in the ReStore, the resale store that Habitat has for items like household appliances.

Vote for the American Red Cross!

On November 4, millions of Americans exercised their right to vote. We applaud you for making your voice heard.

Voting is fun, right?

Why not have some more fun and vote for the Red Cross  on Facebook. With your help, we could win $50,000 from the Western Union Foundation .  Oh, and don’t forget, you can vote once a day for the next 21 days.

We can’t do it without you so, take a minute and help us win!

On “Make A Difference Day”, Oct. 25, the nation's largest single day of volunteerism, more than 3 million people turned out to perform thousands of charitable acts for others. I had the opportunity to go to Jefferson Barracks Memorial Hospital with the St. Louis Area Chapter Youth Corps volunteers to play bingo with the veterans. Not only was it amazing to meet all of the veterans, but we had a great time playing bingo! There were around 15 veterans and five Red Cross Youth Corps and Americorps members spending time together that day. The other volunteers and I helped call out numbers, get drinks and cookies for the vets and played a few rounds as well. The winners got coupons to the hospital cafeteria. I think the veterans enjoyed having new faces around and spending time with us.

Do you know that if a person stops breathing for ten minutes or more, it is almost certain that irreversible brain damage will occur if no one intervenes? Administering CPR during this critical time can make the difference between life or death – or the quality of life.

When I was a kid, there was never a question I hated more -except maybe “why don’t you eat your vegetables”- than the infamously posed “What do you want to be when you grow up?” For starters, I knew I wasn’t going to grow up and if I did, I didn’t want to be known as a certain occupation. I wanted to do. And for me, the only thing I wanted to do with my life was make a difference in someone else’s.

I have been working at the St. Louis Area Chapter for almost three months now as an AmeriCorps member. It’s truly been a great experience. One of my favorite job responsibilities is to teach disaster preparedness education to different groups around St. Louis. This is a free service of the Red Cross and last year the Chapter educated over 100,000 people!

My husband and I lived in University City during the flooding on September 14, 2008. We spent a week at Heman Park when the Red Cross set up shelter for the tenants of University City.

Hello, my name is Pamela Bowser. I was a victim of the flooding during Hurricane Ike. When I walked into your offices, I was afraid no one would believe my story.

A little over five weeks ago, I deployed on my first Red Cross national disaster assignment to the Red Cross Hurricane Gustav relief headquarters in Baton Rouge, LA. I checked in at headquarters and was then sent to an area 30 miles west of New Orleans. Being a RN, my professional expertise was called upon to help Red Cross staff and volunteers with their medical needs during their deployments.

After Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast, I volunteered to help at the American Red Cross national call center.  At the call center, I was in a position to help the truly desperate people, the ones who weren’t able to make it to a shelter, who didn't know how to find food, or who had nothing but the Red Cross 1-800-Get-Info phone number to try to survive. They were usually the ones in the hardest hit areas, where delivering food and supplies door-to-door was nearly impossible because of downed power lines, flood waters and debris blocking the streets. In most cases, I was able to direct people to nearby resources like FEMA Points Of Distribution for food and water, Red Cross shelters, Red Cross feeding sites or other governmental and community resources.  But there were some p