By Alexis Gonzalez

Community Disaster Program Manager Max Sanchez from the Eastern New York Region, has been an advocate for serving diverse populations since arriving in Florida for Hurricanes Helene and Milton. While Sanchez spent over one month responding to Helene, an opportunity to teach the American Red Cross course on Serving Latinos and Diverse populations to Red Cross volunteers.

Serving Latinos and Diverse populations is a course that prepares Red Cross volunteers to understand inclusive emergency management, develop strategies to engage diverse populations in a meaningful way, build trust and increase access in diverse communities, and enhance workforce cultural competency.

As the Red Cross continues to respond to disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Milton in areas filled with diverse cultures, it continues to work towards building connections with and collaboratively engaging diverse historically marginalized and underserved populations, especially Spanish-speaking communities.

“I love teaching this class because you get to see a part of someone’s life you wouldn’t normally be exposed to. You see the journey before and how people got to where they are,” said Sanchez.

“It’s really about understanding their story, which helps us get closer to them and understand how to better serve the community.”