By Alison Votaw, Red Cross Communications Volunteer

When Leanna Carskaddon, Senior Volunteer Recruitment Specialist at the American Red Cross, looks around a room full of Red Cross volunteers, she can barely get through a speech without getting emotional. Leanna is constantly amazed by the local volunteers who constantly show up for their community every day. From her aunt’s phone call in 2012 to her current role supporting youth clubs across the region, Leanna’s story is a masterclass in what it means to lead by example.

Leanna didn’t find the Red Cross by accident. Like many, she witnessed the Red Cross helping during national disasters.

“When my kids got older and didn’t need me as much, I’m gonna go do that,” she told herself. She just didn’t know a local chapter existed until her aunt, volunteering at the front desk one summer, called her up and said, “You have to come down here. You’re gonna love this.” That one phone call launched an 11-year volunteer career before Leanna transitioned to paid staff, a decision she describes as feeling simply right when the time came.

“She was just leading by example. She didn’t have to go find a way to volunteer. She was doing it by being her.”

The women in Leanna’s life have been her north star. Her mother managed a chain of dry cleaning stores and quietly poured herself into the lives of her employees by collecting food, pooling money and making sure no one went without. “She was always doing something for her employees,” Leanna recalls. That spirit of quiet, consistent service was passed down like a family heirloom.

At the Red Cross, her colleague Veronique Royer, Volunteer Engagement Specialist, carried that torch further. Veronique’s energy and positive attitude are infectious to everyone who works with her.

 “I wouldn’t be sitting here without her,” Leanna says. “She knows everything, she drives so much, she has such a passion and she always wants to make sure everybody’s taken care of.”

Leanna knew that she was stepping into a role with large Red Cross boots to fill.

“She was just an angel on earth.”

Megin Hughes, a long-time Red Crosser, is felt throughout Leanna’s office. Megin’s love and hard work ethic are a driving force for Leanna as she seeks to honor the woman who paved the way for her.

They volunteered for years alongside each other, and now Leanna is committed to serving in her memory.

“Volunteers don’t take no for an answer,” Leanna says, “because they want to make an impact.”

That same philosophy of leading by example is exactly what Leanna brings to her work with Red Cross youth clubs. Currently, eight clubs are active across the Kern Chapter, with three more expected this year. These aren’t clubs that Leanna had to recruit for. The students came to her. They reach out, pitch ideas, push through school bureaucracy and in some cases are willing to form independent clubs outside their school just to make it happen. The results speak for themselves, with one determined group driving over 100 volunteers into their club in a remarkably short time. “It makes me want to do more,” she says.

“I learn from them every single day, and I’m just grateful to be in the room with them.”

The projects these young people take on are as creative as they are compassionate. They assemble comfort kits for children displaced by house fires, collect supplies for veteran stand-downs, make cooling kits for farm workers ahead of the brutal summer heat, and teach CPR to their peers. Leanna’s own son fell in love with the pillowcase project, teaching stop, drop, and roll to daycare kids, and never looked back. “They’ve just taken that into their lives as something that they love,” she says. “Red Cross is part of who we are.”

What keeps Leanna going is the human spirit she encounters every single day. A couple in their 80s in tornado-ravaged Oklahoma who simply said they’d rebuild again. A Frasier Park resident who lost everything in a fire immediately asked how he could give back. Youth club leaders who want to lead the positive change in their community.

To anyone on the fence about volunteering, Leanna has one thing to say: “There is always a place here. You will get so much more out of it than you will ever give.”

Interested in joining a Red Cross youth club or volunteering with your local chapter? Reach out to the American Red Cross to learn more and get connected with a Volunteer Recruiter just like Leanna.