Written by Lisa Kaplan Gordon, American Red Cross Public Affairs

Malisia Lemme had been managing shelters for the American Red Cross for two years when she suddenly had a déjà vu moment. Thirty-five years earlier, when Lemme was just 13, her family escaped an apartment fire and spent the night in a makeshift shelter the Red Cross established in Silver Spring, Md.

“The memory came flooding back,” says Lemme, now 51. “I realized, I was in one of these shelters as a kid. And now, if there’s a big apartment fire, I’m running the shelter.”  

Lemme stands out among the of nearly 275,000 Red Cross volunteers, who make up over 90% of the organization's workforce. Over the past seven years, the Indiana resident has deployed more than 50 times across the U.S. helping survivors of tornadoes, floods and hurricanes.

Lemme is deployed to help survivors of Hurricane Helene, and stayed to aid clients left without a home after Hurricane Milton. It’s the fifth time she’s deployed to Florida’s west coast, which has been repeatedly slammed by ever-more-powerful storms fueled by the extreme weather.

She has sheltered families who evacuated because of the hurricanes, fed the hungry, and over the past few weeks, helped to permanently resettle Florida residents whose homes were flooded or swept away in storms that caused billions of dollars in damage.

Lemme, who is a trained emergency medical technician, loves deploying to disasters “to help people.”

“The compassion the Red Cross has for clients is amazing. It’s my calling in life,” Lemme says. 

“It’s what I love to do.” 

Lemme is accustomed to helping people on the worst day of their lives. But she was a bit surprised when the Red Cross was there for her during one of her worst moments.

Lemme was deployed a year ago when her younger brother, a roofer, was electrocuted. Within a few hours, she was on a flight home.

“I knew it was hard to get a flight to Indiana, and it cost a lot of money, but they made sure I got home,” she says.

Red Cross volunteers are helping and supporting families across the Southeast U.S. living with the heartbreaking destruction from hurricanes Milton and Helene. Disaster responders have been managing shelters, distributing meals and essential relief supplies, and providing emotional support to those in need across multiple states, including Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. 

The road to recovery is long, but thanks to volunteers like Malisia, the Red Cross is committed to supporting affected communities until they are back on their feet. If you want to make a difference in the lives of others, consider putting on a red vest and joining us. Find more information at redcross.org/volunteer.