By: Susan Gallagher

In Kenya, she cared for HIV-AIDS orphans—including tending to the hourly needs of an AID-infected 5-year-old in the last months of his life. In Uganda, she offered financial help to desperate families who were living in the slums of Kampala in abject poverty.  

But despite her extensive international experience, Kirstin Terris said “nothing gets me out of bed in the morning like the Red Cross. I love helping people at the time of their greatest need.”  

The newly named Response Program Manager of the Missouri and Arkansas Region first served as a Recovery Casework Intern when on her third day at the Red Cross, she was suddenly told to answer myriad calls for help. In May 2019, historic flooding along the Missouri River had caused billions of dollars in damage and devastated entire communities.

“My supervisor was deployed to help with logistics, so I took calls for hours, and when I finally left the building that night, I had a huge sense of satisfaction,” Kirstin recalls.  At the time, she was earning a master's degree in social work from Saint Louis University and new to the region.

Born in Braintree, England, an hour northeast of London, Kirstin grew up in a charming historic market town that offers everything from steam railways to medieval barns. Her parents, sister and two brothers still live in, or only a few hours from, Braintree.

Hers was a typical middle-class upbringing, but a bit of family trauma happened when her 9-year-old brother fell from climbing bars in a playground and ruptured his spleen. He needed blood transfusions to recover, which prompted Kirstin’s dad to sign up as a blood donor. For 15 years her father faithfully gave blood until a cancer diagnosis stopped his donations. Although her mom was not able to donate because of small veins, her sister and sister-in-law have been donors for years.

But Kirstin’s peripatetic lifestyle meant she did not go to a donation site until she came to the United States on vacation in 2004. That’s when she learned there was a ban on blood donations from anyone who lived or traveled in the United Kingdom, France, or Ireland, or who served at military bases in Europe during various periods from 1980 to 2001.  Required by the Federal Drug Administration, the ban came in response to concern about an illness called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which was related to mad cow disease. It emerged first in Great Britain.

In November 2022, the FDA finally lifted its restrictions on blood donations from people who had been overseas amid outbreaks of mad cow disease. Kirstin could now donate blood, and a few months ago, St. Louis was the site of her first donation.   

This area became Kirstin’s home after four years in Springfield, MO, where at the private Christian Evangel University, she was awarded a degree in social work and Biblical studies. Kirstin then moved on to Saint Louis University, earning her social work license and master’s degree.  However, she continued to volunteer with the Red Cross for several months because she could not work full time while waiting for her approval of a Green Card.  

Green Card in hand, she is now the region’s Response Program Manager—directing the region’s Duty Officer and Disaster Action Team programs and managing volunteer training, while serving as a mentor and training team member for the Disaster Action Team.

Her primary goal for the future? “I want to be able to provide a glimmer of hope to people in their darkest hours.”