By Michelle Limpe

Kaia Newsam was out the door, ready to head to Los Angeles as soon as she got the call from the American Red Cross to respond to the Southern California wildfires. Even if this was her first volunteer mission with the Red Cross, Kaia was equipped to volunteer, having already completed the necessary training.

A recent graduate from U.C. Berkeley and now based in Merced, Kaia has been studying for the MCAT in preparation for medical school applications, which left her with free time to answer the call for volunteers.

“I was a brand new volunteer still going through my training and I just happened to be able to do all of the sheltering training in one day,” she said.

“Deploying to the L.A. fires was my first experience volunteering at the Red Cross, which is a crazy thing to leave for two weeks to do.”

Kaia was inspired to volunteer for the Red Cross when some of her college friends got involved with the organization after graduation. After connecting with her local chapter and completing her volunteer application, Kaia began training to support disaster response efforts, which included accelerated instruction or “cram sessions.”

The Red Cross offers “cram sessions” when the organization anticipates that there is an upcoming major disaster. These “cram sessions” condenses information needed for a new volunteer to ramp up to sheltering or feeding positions quickly. In Kaia’s case, she had the opportunity to accomplish “cram session” training when the team offered it during the hurricane season last fall.

“I was actually shocked at how short the training was. I completed the training in one full length day,” Kaia said. “The most helpful part for me was when they had people who had been on a bunch of deployments before, and who had been shelter managers before, come and share their experiences with us. It was the best way to get a grasp of what it was going to be like when I got there.”

When the infamous wildfires swept across the Los Angeles and San Diego counties in January 2025, there was an urgent need to get volunteers to the site quickly — and Kaia was ready to go.  

“I kind of went in with no expectations. I got sent to a massive shelter, and it ended up being on a much bigger scale than I thought,” Kaia said. “I was a Sheltering Associate, so I spent most of my time maintaining the dormitory, making sure we had a headcount of who was in the dormitory and connecting people with resources.”

Gameelah Mohamed, a regional Red Cross community disaster program manager, reflected on Kaia’s dedication to attend the training and deploy immediately.

“You could see that Kaia is passionate, since she jumped at the opportunity to go and help people. She also had a great evaluation, and everyone was praising her for how well she worked with everyone and supported everybody in the shelter,” Gameelah said. “She did a fantastic job, so I’m just really excited to have her on our team.”

These shelters are important in providing displaced residents who have lost their home and belongings with food, shelter, emotional care, recovery planning and financial assistance as they determine their next steps.

Considering the widespread impact of the Southern California wildfires, a devastating set of natural events that destroyed over 16,000 homes and displaced over 150,000 residents throughout January, Kaia reflected on the varied needs of impacted families and individuals.

“Some of the most devastating ones were families that had young children because I would see these kids every day, and I would play with them because they would want to be entertained,” she said. “The whole time I’m interacting with them, I’m just reminded that they don’t have anywhere to go right now.”

Kaia highlighted the importance of community support when tragic disasters like the L.A. fires occur. She met many local volunteers who were taking the time out of their busy lives to provide aid.

“One thing that was really heartwarming to see was there were also local volunteers that would come in for half day shifts,” she said. “Even if they were working, there were still local people coming in to help.”

There was one shelter resident of the L.A. fires in particular that Kaia connected with during her deployment. The woman was recovering from a major surgery in the hospital before moving to the shelter.

“I became closer to her, and I made sure I was checking on her all the time, especially the first couple days because she was on really heavy pain medication,” Kaia said. “During my last day there, she got placed with housing, so I got to say goodbye to her. That one really impacted me because I’d been with her for most of my time, and I was able to see her leave the shelter and get placed somewhere.”

Kaia emphasized that joining the relief efforts was a serious role that could be physically and emotionally draining. Volunteers worked 12-hour shifts and continuously supported shelter residents in need of help.

Having worked as an emergency medical technician before, Kaia compared the crisis work as an EMT to her Red Cross disaster deployment.

“The EMT job was a little bit easier because I knew the victims had somewhere to be. Then, in the shelter, you were seeing people that had no idea what was going to be next for them. A lot of them had lost their jobs because they didn’t have housing, and it just felt so hopeless for some people,” she said. “The training prepared me as much as I possibly could. But I think that no matter how many times they say that it’s another thing to feel it when you’re actually there.”

She expressed her gratitude for the emotional support resources that the Red Cross provided during her deployment, which included staff and counselors who would check in on the emotional well-being of the volunteers.

Reflecting on her deployment, Kaia described how being in a large-scale disaster situation shaped her long-term career goals. 

“It solidified the fact that I want to work in emergency medicine in the future, and I want to try and help people that are in a really tough situation in crisis mode,” she said. “It was this weird thing because I always hear about the stuff on the news, but to actually be there among the people that were affected and experience the energy of the situation is a perspective that I am grateful to have now. It made me want to volunteer more. I know that they need people to go out and do this.”

Gameelah emphasized the need for volunteers like Kaia who are able to accomplish the training and available to deploy when a crisis occurs.

“It makes a huge impact on our ability to respond. If we have more people like Kaia that will get trained, then we won’t be struggling with responders when something happens,” she said. “Right now, we don’t really have a lot of shelter workers so if people got trained, it would be extremely beneficial to our community here, like how important it was for the L.A. fires.”

While Kaia acknowledged that not every volunteer has the time to leave for two weeks at a moment’s notice to deploy across the state or the country, she asserted that there are many ways for local community members to get involved with their chapters and complete trainings that could prepare them to support their community.

“Even if you’re not part of volunteering during a large-scale disaster, you could help your local chapter by getting the training just in case something were to happen,” she said. “My chapter was very responsive and encouraging in helping me get involved in whatever way I could. It’s all important work.”