By Quinn Aftab

In the floods of 1981-82, the residents of the San Francisco Bay Area were surrounded by 25-inch rainfalls that hit the mountains ruthlessly, causing 33 deaths and damaging over 7,800 homes and businesses. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, the heavy rains triggered mudslides that blocked road access to the upper regions, burying buildings and trapping people.

Jill Hofmann, a licensed marriage, family and child therapist, was one of the residents of Santa Cruz County who was recruited to be part of the County Mental Health Team in 1981, quickly arose to support impacted residents, providing grief counseling and helping them cope.

However, the physical and mental efforts she remembered enduring, such as visiting community shelters or climbing over tree trunks to deliver packaged food, were just the beginning of her story as a Red Crosser. In fact, during the floods, Jill truly saw the lasting kindness and compassion of her fellow volunteers, after which she began her own journey of 43 years as a Red Cross volunteer.

Looking back, she concludes, “We’re all the fabric of humanity–we’re all connected by an invisible thread, and disasters could happen to any of us.”

The thread of connection that Jill describes, however, grew drastically throughout her involvement in the Red Cross. Little would Jill know that during a simple lunch, a national headquarters staff would inquire about her background and a year later, ask if she was willing to volunteer in the Bosnian War.

“Those were the craziest years of my life,” Jill recalls about that period of time. Aside from rigorous training and stacks of information packets she had to read on the plane, her job as a psycho-social delegate described that she was responsible for 17,000 people who had been forced to leave their homes, 800 tortured families and needed to supervise 26 social workers in the Makarska region of Croatia.

One of the things Jill was able to accomplish with the support of a Croatian artist who volunteered for the Red Cross and her social worker counterpart was bringing together a group of women whose spouses, uncles and brothers were fighting in the war. Despite some of their families being on opposing sides, these women came together with quilting materials provided by the Red Cross and created a large quilt sewn out of patches, representing the houses they lost in the war. As they met to sew their patches each week for three months, each shared their story and began healing together. The women’s wish for the quilt was that it would travel around the world to create peace

Jill expresses, “I wanted to share that story because it’s one of the highlights of how people from opposing sides can work together, heal together and share their stories together. And that becomes healing in and of itself.”

Another accomplishment was her ability to prevent 1,000 refugees from a city called Mostar from returning to the front using her knowledge of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the support of her team. Jill recalls, “The social workers and I stood by the buses that were trying to return the refugees back to the war zone and educated the bus drivers and the guards attempting to place the refugees on the buses that they could be tried for war crimes if they forced anyone on to the bus.” The social workers also taught the refugees that they were protected by IHL. Jill is proud to note that not one person went on any of the buses.

Since that time, Jill has contributed to seven international operations and over 60 national deployments as a Red Cross volunteer. However, the Bosnian War transformed Jill’s life. She learned how important the Red Cross principles of neutrality and impartiality truly are. “One of the most touching things about Red Cross International Services is to realize how we impartially support the most vulnerable in times of armed conflict, disaster and forced migration, without discriminating on whose side you are on,” she commented.

Jill is always leaping at the chance to educate others on the Red Cross mission, in multiple roles, including being an expert instructor for International Services programs around IHL or Restoring Family Links, reconnecting families after a disaster. Through her vast years of experience, she inquires, “Can we start over with a new paradigm of paying attention to the heartbeat of the world, its quest for help, going beyond our borders of neighbors in our cities to the neighbors far away?”

Jill continues to inspire us with her contributions and lives she has saved. We are grateful to have Jill as such a passionate, dedicated and bravely courageous volunteer.