BY TAMMY HENSLEY
Media Relations Volunteer

An attempt to do a good deed led Stan Scott to becoming an American Red Cross volunteer.

When the 2009 ice storm hit Kentucky, he and his fellow church members from Owensboro Cumberland Presbyterian Church made potato soup and went around to visit other church members in the community. Without access to their addresses, their act of service only met difficulty. Afterward, Scott remembered that the American Red Cross had come through his neighborhood many years prior after a tornado had hit the area. They brought supplies and hot meals, so Scott decided to meet with the Red Cross to learn how his church could get involved.

“I told her what we tried to do and how we weren’t very successful,” he said, and then shared their conversation was interrupted by a phone call about a home fire.

Red Cross Disaster Action Team volunteers help local families cope with emergencies, like home fires, night or day, rain or shine. When they receive a call about a home fire, they respond within 2 hours, either on the scene or coordinating remotely to provide immediate compassion and care.

Stan shared that the Red Crosser invited him to go with her on the home fire response: “She turned to me and said, ‘You wanna go?’ and I went right then.”

The assistant principal, high school teacher and football coach was already looking for something to do beyond education when he retired. Volunteering with the Red Cross has allowed Scott to continue to use the skills he developed throughout his career in education. He has taken multiple courses through the Red Cross and became a disaster instructor and government operations volunteer for Kentucky - a leadership position that allows him to serve as a liaison for emergency managers.

After he became a disaster instructor, Scott decided he should help on disaster responses by deploying—volunteering across the country and within the state to help those in need after a disaster—to learn what all it entailed if he wanted to be an effective teacher.

“I started going out on deployments,” he said. “I’ve probably been on 30 [disaster responses]. It’s been so many I haven’t counted now.”

Deployments have taught Scott a lot about how a disaster response works. He has helped with the logistics of taking requests for supplies and processing them to make sure shelters have what they need. Scott also volunteers as an Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) driver, which he enjoys because - despite the long hours and hard work – the people in communities impacted by disasters “are so appreciative of a hot meal,” he said.

As an ERV driver, he has traveled to Louisiana, North Carolina, Florida and New Jersey to deliver meals to residents in areas that have been affected by a tornado, hurricane, flood or other natural disasters.

Today, he volunteers in Red Cross shelters and with the Service to Armed Forces Animal Visitation Program, in which he regularly visits between 100 and 300 patients at Owensboro Health Regional Hospital with his golden doodle, Beacon.

“She’s pretty famous at the hospital,” he said. “The nurses hear her tags rattle and they say, ‘Beacon’s here.’”

As much as Scott enjoyed his career in education, he has become passionate about volunteering with the Red Cross.

“I guess it goes back to that first punch we had when that tornado hit our house - knowing how it felt to receive that help when we really needed it,” he said. “When I started volunteering, I could still use the skills that I had developed in education. It’s been a big part of my life since I retired. That feeling you get when you help people - I just really like doing that.”

Scott encourages others to become involved with the Red Cross.

“Volunteers are the heart and soul of the Red Cross," said Scott. "We need more people with the number of natural disasters that keep happening.”
 

You can learn more about volunteering with the Red Cross at redcross.org/volunteer