According to Curt Leo, when you volunteer to be a Fulfillment Service Associate at the American Red Cross, everyone is happy to see you, everyday.
“When you get to the shelter, it’s like Christmas for them. They love to see you!” says Curt, who volunteered for the fulfillment service associate role for the first time earlier this year, distributing essential items to shelters.
And it’s no wonder they were happy to see Curt, because he arrived at the disaster shelters with an SUV packed full of supplies, including baby diapers, 20 lbs. of bananas, healthy snacks, breakfast foods, coffee and paper goods.
Curt, who spends half the year in Sonoma County, Calif., and half the year in Sammamish, WA (a suburb of Seattle) has been a Red Cross volunteer for three-and-a-half years in various roles.
He was in Nashville, Tenn., in February responding to a severe winter storm that caused widespread power outages. His role while there was to shop for and deliver necessary supplies to shelters. While Red Cross warehouses are typically stocked with supplies in advance of disasters, shelters will sometimes run out and need replenishment.
Bright and early each morning around 7 a.m. he was given a list of items the shelters needed, and he and a partner would drive to stores like Walmart, Walgreens and Home Depot in an SUV. Some requests were straightforward such as going to buy massive quantities of cereal for shelter residents’ breakfasts, while others were more unusual, such as finding and purchasing a cane for someone who left theirs behind when they evacuated. One trip alone to a store could fill up to four shopping carts.
At times, it was necessary to make multiple trips to the stores to pick up more supplies for the next round of deliveries. “You are going to be in Walmart a lot,” Curt laughs. One observation Curt made was it was beneficial to try to work with the same store employees each day, and to become familiar with the managers. It helped make the process smoother when things got really busy.
At the end of each 12-hour day, Curt would upload all the receipts online for tracking purposes and providing transparency on how the Red Cross uses its donor dollars.
Curt spent part of his career in business-to-business distribution; however, there is no previous experience necessary for this type of volunteer role at Red Cross.
Jamshid Kiani from Santa Cruz, CA has also been a Fulfillment Service Associate at the Red Cross. He describes it simply as “buying things and delivering things.”
Those things are items that may not be available in the Red Cross warehouse and are not available from in-kind donations. Jamshid drove a box truck loaded with everything from the warehouse that the shelters ran low on including cots, blankets, coffee and toilet paper.
He recalls it as a good time. “That’s the fun with Fulfillment. You get to do a lot of stuff. Sometimes you are driving a truck. Sometimes you are going to market. Sometimes you will be working on a computer inputting data. You get to visit all the shelters and meet a lot of people.”
It’s an important volunteer role in every disaster response. “It’s always needed,” Jamshid says. And a fulfilling one at that, “They are excited to see you,” says Curt. “You get a lot of ‘thank you’s’ for doing it.”
A Fulfillment Service Associate makes sure no request goes unanswered. If you’re looking for a volunteer opportunity that blends logistics with compassion, this could be the perfect fit. Please visit redcross.org to find out more.
This article was edited with the assistance of AI tools.
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