By Janet Dubiel, Red Cross Communications Volunteer

Kingman resident John Jackson was honored at the recent American Red Cross Northern Arizona Chapter volunteer recognition event, receiving the ‘Rookie of the Year’ award. The event, held on April 25^th at the 1899 Conference Center on the Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff, celebrated the work put in and accomplishments achieved by all of the organization’s volunteers. Roughly 90% of the work done by the Red Cross is done by volunteers. It is not unusual for one volunteer to hold several positions, though some choose to concentrate their energies on one role.

Having worked 30 years in the culinary field and as a chef, John has always been one to lead and teach. He explained, “I spent 3 years opening restaurants, so I did a lot training and teaching. I am now disabled. After seeing the impact of hurricanes Helene and Milton, I thought there is more that I can do to help, so I then applied to be a volunteer with the Red Cross.”

John joined the Red Cross, in January 2025, as a Disaster Action Team (DAT) member, responding with compassion and resources to victims of house fires in Mojave County. With experience, training and mentoring he has taken on the role of Mojave County DAT Supervisor. He explained that his Red Cross journey has been Karen Pimental, the Northern Arizona Community Disaster Program Specialist, keeping him engaged and getting him involved with everything, In his words, “I’ve just been going along the ride helping with all that can.” This is exactly the attitude that earned him ‘Rookie of the Year’.

 He is also active in Community Preparedness Resilience Services, providing education and training to residents in Mojave County on how to prepare for, react to and recover from disasters. John stated that his year 2 goal as, “We currently need more people. Mohave is a huge county and cities are hours apart from each other, so to get more volunteers in different cities. This will help make response much faster and smoother.” When asked what it means to him to volunteer for the Red Cross, John replied, “It means a lot. Lets me know that I am helping Karen and the Red Cross with new volunteers and that those volunteers also look up to me.”

This Chapter is just over 1 year old and during this first year has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of number of volunteers and services provided to the community. In this first year the Chapter has brought on over 300 new volunteers, collected over 3,000 units of blood; assisted over 900 individuals after disasters, the majority of which were house fires; made nearly 1,700 individuals safer with our Home Fire Campaign, Community Preparedness and Education and Pedro the Penguin programs; and engaged over 30 college students though Northern Arizona University’s Capstone and Internship programs, and Yavapai College partnerships.

If you’re interested in learning more about volunteer opportunities with the Red Cross and joining John in fulfilling the Red Cross mission “to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies”, contact dennis.pressier@redcross.org or 928-606-2634.