by Bernadette Casey

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

That quote, often attributed to Winston Churchill, is a fitting description of American Red Cross volunteer Julio Medina and his mission to help others. Medina, a retired New York City civil employee, began volunteering with the Red Cross Greater New York chapter almost nine years ago and is always willing to jump in and lend a hand wherever needed.

As a Disaster Action Team member, he responds to home fires, floods and other emergencies to help neighbors in need. During major disasters, both in New York and throughout the country, he can also be found on the streets of heavily impacted communities doing disaster damage assessments or working directly with shelter residents to help them navigate their paths to recovery with individualized assistance from the Red Cross. Whichever role Julio is formally working in, he often steps up to help wherever needed – whether it’s translating for Spanish-speaking residents or donating blood, like he once did while deployed to a hurricane in Florida.

Medina says it’s just his nature to love doing “20,000 things at one time.” And that’s not just talk. The Bronx resident regularly volunteers 60 to 80 hours a week in his community and has deployed to disasters hundreds of miles from home, including Hurricane Ian and the wildfires in Hawaii.

Spend five minutes talking to Medina and his love of working with clients is clear.

“Listening to clients, hearing their input helps you relate to them and understand how to approach them,” he says. “If I haven’t put a smile on their face, I have not done my job. That helps them refocus on listening to what are the next steps to take so they can begin to recover from the disaster.”

His focus on building a genuine connection to clients was especially important during his deployment to the Hawaii wildfires in August 2023. Medina, who lived in Puerto Rico for a few years to help take care of an ailing family member, felt his background as an islander helped in relating to the people of Hawaii. He began reading up on Hawaiian culture even before being deployed, he says.

“Learning the culture is a very important step. Culture and beliefs had to be respected.”

Medina was in the first wave of volunteers responding to the disaster, where about a third of those affected were Spanish speakers. The severity of the devastation made one-on-one intakes with clients impossible, so Medina set up 10 clients at a time in a classroom and ended up providing instruction in Spanish to about 305 people. By the end of Medina’s deployment, grateful clients were referring to him as an uncle and they presented him with a two-foot surfboard they had each signed.

“It was the most memorable experience of my life,” he says. “The people made you feel like family. When you get that kind of respect, you know you are doing something right.”

Medina, who first connected with the Red Cross in 1985, when he took courses to become a swim instructor and lifeguard, believes training is critical to delivering on the organization’s mission.

“To service people in need, you have to be trained properly,” he says. “Responders need to be aware of all the services provided so they can impart the breadth of services provided by the Red Cross to the clients they are serving.”

In recognition of his commitment as a Red Cross volunteer, Medina was recently named a Henri Dunant Leadership Award honoree, the highest honor bestowed on a volunteer.

Siobhan McGinley, a Community Disaster Program Manager with the Red Cross, knows the compassion Julio brings to his work very well and says his leadership award is well deserved. As McGinley’s volunteer partner, Medina helps her strengthen and deepen relationships with community partners by organizing Home Fire Campaign installations, training new volunteers — or doing whatever needs to be done.

“You couldn’t find someone in New York City with a bigger heart than Julio,” says McGinley. “The patience and compassion he brings to every interaction he has is truly inspiring. He’d give somebody the boots off his own feet if we ran out of shoes in the right size. That’s just the kind of person he is.”

During the awards ceremony this past April, Medina got word that more volunteers were needed to help people impacted by an ongoing local fire. And, in an act that epitomizes his commitment to those in need, Medina left the ceremony and responded to the fire.

“It is a privilege and a responsibility to help people,” Medina says. “The mission is what counts.”

The mission of the Red Cross is powered by volunteers like Julio. Put on a red vest and join us by visiting www.redcross.org/volunteer to find an opportunity that is right for you.