[Music] Michael thank you it is 6:33 every eight minutes Red Cross volunteers respond to a disaster in the United States the volunteers help people facing the most difficult days of their lives one of those volunteers here in our area has been helping others for decades and she has no plans to stop here's her story to talk to them Brenda Biven spends lots of her time here it's off the road at the Red Cross volunteering bit more about what Brenda has been a volunteer for decades she was first int
roduced to the Red Cross in the 199s initially it I was drawn because of my sister my sister was um in a state that where she needed help Brenda's sister was sick and the Red Cross was able to help them both understand the illness I learned that I got there got the information that was able to I was able to help her although wasn't able to save her life but it did help me to understand what she was going through Brenda took that information and despite the devastating outcome made the choice to
help she passed but I could said that I was able to help other people you know with the the knowledge and stuff that I had and from there Brenda just continued to learn she became a foster parent she and her husband fostered dozens of children and recognized needs along the way I'll post parent needed um the certifications for CPR in order to keep our license to to to be first parented and so okay I became a community firstate um instructor um to help that out in the early days Brenda was volunt
eering while also working as a rehab specialist at Cersei hospital when she retired she turned all of her attention to helping the Red Cross help others volunteering with Red Cross it was something that I enjoy I enjoy helping people the Red Cross allows me to be able to help the people she has helped a lot of people in a lot of disaster situations fires and then we have the tornadoes and hurricanes uh coming through our area it always starts the same way first thing is how can we help what what
can we do and from there Brenda and her teams rebuild lives something she's done over and over again we do have programs Brenda is now a community volunteer leader a supervisor for Mass care a supervisor for the disaster action team her titles go on and on she is constantly teaching what she knows to others training future volunteers and securing the resources needed for the next disaster the things that you lost you cannot replace everything but those things that you need you're able to recove
r at the time with the sistance that they're able to give you a volunteer at heart and in doing a little bit more and the Red Cross is always looking for people to help 90% of the Red Cross Workforce volunteers if you're interested in helping there are lots of opportunities everything from blood donations to responding to disasters to working behind the scenes to helping veterans you can decide the best fit for you for more information on volunteering you can join the virtual volunteer informati
on session it's tomorrow from 2: to 3:30 it's online again we have all the details for you on our website at Fox 10tv.com and you can find access to that at redcross.org volunteer a volunteer
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