The American Red Cross in Greater New York’s Disaster Workforce Engagement (DWE) Team recently celebrated 23 incredible volunteers at a Spring into Action Volunteer Recognition Event. These amazing Red Crossers have demonstrated unwavering dedication and support throughout the year in four different sets of criteria.

Below are our spring volunteer award winners in the words of the people who nominated them.
 

Community Collaborator

Criteria: This award is being given to those volunteers whose dedication to the mission has cultivated or improved community partnerships with the American Red Cross in Greater New York.
 

Frances McIntyre Smith, Financial Statistical Information and Contracts: For over sixteen years, Fran has volunteered with the Financial Statistical Information and Contracts unit (FSI) negotiating commercial lodging agreements for Disaster Cycle Services. With her efforts we have been able to have over fifty active hotels within NYC. Over the last few years, starting with COVID-19, followed by the arrival of thousands of new migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in NYC, hotel room availability in NYC has diminished considerably — it is thanks to Fran's exceptional relationship building that we have been able to secure new or maintain agreements with hotel vendors to ensure that we are able to provide housing services to our disaster clients.
 

Mentorship Marvel

Criteria: This award is being given to volunteers gifted at leading the way in mission delivery by training and leading their fellow volunteers.
 

John Angulat, Disaster Action Team: John has worked to produce a weekly Metro NY North Disaster Action Team (DAT) spotlight to help volunteers know what is going on with DAT in the chapter. He also is always willing to help volunteers learn and grow.

Deb Bausenwein, Mass Care: Deb is a remarkable leader who has single-handedly managed the Mass Care program for Metro NY North, while also serving as the constant feeding lead for the region. Her dedication and compassion for her volunteer work shone brightly when a disaster hit New Jersey and they urgently needed a feeding manager. Even with her many tasks and responsibilities within the chapter and region, she headed to north Jersey for several days to serve as the main feeding manager.

Mary Davis, Disaster Action Team: Mary always goes above and beyond onboarding new volunteers. She taps into each person's strengths and encourages them to expand on their talents at American Red Cross. She knows all of her volunteers well and makes it look easy. From her orientations to the field, every Disaster Action Team member is supported by Mary Davis with her presence, PowerPoint presentations, and red folders full of information. She holds meetings to go over response calls and encourages everyone to put their heads together and think about how we can do better next time.

Rick Gottlieb, Disaster Action Team: Rick has shown many new volunteers the ropes on the evening shifts of Disaster Action Team. He has also taken a leadership role on projects with other volunteers guiding them on the process within the organization to help support the mission.

Barbara Zemcik, Preparedness: After joining the Preparedness team in 2022, Barbara quickly acquired the skills and knowledge needed to become a presenter in our adult programs. Her mentorship not only guides them in the preparedness world, but she is constantly introducing and guiding them into the various activities across the Red Cross. She leverages her extensive teaching experience to mentor our preparedness educators to become experts at what we do.
 

Spirit of Service Award

Criteria: These volunteers exemplify the inspiring humanitarian spirit of the American Red Cross in Greater New York in all that they do.
 

Ellen Boyle, Staffing and Financial Statistical Information: Ellen has been an active volunteer with American Red Cross for over 13 years, she has been very active within the Staff Services function for years now. She decided to offer her finance expertise and joined the Financial Statistical Information (FSI) team almost two years ago. Her help with invoice processing and her willingness to volunteer additional hours when the volume of work escalates has ensured that we do not have extensive delays in the processing of invoices.  She has done this while still maintaining her role in Staff Services and other groups within Disaster Cycle Services. Of note: Ellen has processed close to six thousand invoices in her 22 months with the FSI unit.

Diane Calesso, Disaster Action Team: Diane is an outstanding volunteer that is always willing to pick up extra shifts or jump in to help support both employees and volunteers.  She is on top of everything that is going on with the Metro NY North duty officers and is always looking to help more.

Sara Cabezas, Home Fire Campaign: Sara has been with us for many years, volunteerism is in her soul. She's been coming in regularly and doing data entry for Home Fire Campaign (HFC). She was recently honored for her efforts in a lives-saved case for HFC.

Richard Gallis, Edge Administrator: What doesn't Richard do? He is a crucial leader for our regional training and exercises team. He raises his hand to help nationally with trainings and instructor certification, which is a lot of work, and is the volunteer partner to the Regional Disaster Officer and he helps with much more.

Leslie Ostrover, Disaster Health Services: Leslie has a good working relationship with the other Group/Activity/Positions (GAPs) on Long Island. She strives to build good working relationships with other chapters in our region and has deployed to a reception center in NYC. Leslie has stepped up to become a Disaster Health Services lead on Long Island and encourages new volunteers to become active and engaged. She has also recently participated in in-person visits to console grieving families with Integrated Care Condolence Team needs.

Steven Scheer, Disaster Assessment: During the heavy rain event this past January, Steven led the Long Island team for damage assessment.  The team was requested by Suffolk County to help do property damage assessment in and around Mastic Beach area.  Even though we didn't find much residential property damage, we were able to provide the information his team provided to him to our county partners to help them make their case to the state and federal government for assistance.

Nancy Stein, Multiple Roles: For 12+ years, she's been an inspiration to her co-workers and staff to "do better" and with a "big smile". Nancy is a critical volunteer for recovery operations. Because of her 40 hours a week dedication to the Document Reviewer role, much needed financial assistance gets approved for disaster displaced clients. She’s also a Blood Donor Ambassador, Volunteer Recruitment Support Ambassador, with Mass Care and with Community Preparedness. She's also been active as a presenter, on Disaster Action Team, and with Feeding. Plus, Nancy is a passionate animal lover and was an early one to encourage the Red Cross to do more to holistically care for furry and feathered family members (and reptiles too).

Rick Stein, Multiple Roles: Rick Stein serves in one of the most important volunteer roles we have, Disaster Event Reviewer, which is a virtually unknown and unsung hero function. The role serves like "oil in an engine" for Level 1 and 2 operations.  It's a 40+ hour a week job supporting all three chapters.  He also serves as a Blood Donor Ambassador, Volunteer Recruitment Support Ambassador, Mass Care Shelter Manager and with community preparedness.  This 50-60 hours of volunteering EACH MONTH is dedication on steroids.  Plus, he's fun to work with and keeps us going with his humor and good cheer.

Lacine Toure, Home Fire Campaign: Lacine has been with Home Fire Campaign in various capacities: driver, installer, and now team lead. He does records distribution for our volunteers and makes sure every one of his team members comes back in one piece! He regularly gives us multiple shifts a month and never falters. He's always responsible and has a wonderful attitude!
 

Spring into Action Award

Criteria: These are volunteers who have been supporting the mission for less than two years and already exemplifying leadership.
  

Andrea Davis, Development & Promotion: Andrea hit the ground running learning quickly how to [qualify for a] Group/Activity/Position (GAP) and in a couple of months worked her way up to Regional Program Lead of Leadership. She has put in a lot of effort and dedication volunteering multiple times each week to ensure GAPs are done in a timely manner and is now helping put together manager packets.

Daisy Escalante, Home Fire Campaign: Daisy has been a great asset to the team. Daisy has been an active member of the Metro NY North Home Fire Campaign team. She has wonderful enthusiasm for all aspects of the Home Fire Campaign.  She has quickly mastered what is needed to be an excellent installer, educator, and documenter. Of particular note is Daisy’s role of training volunteers at a number of events, including Sound the Alarm 2023. Daisy has also supported the team with her Spanish language skills, a big help when reaching out to Spanish-speaking clients and leading training for Spanish-speaking volunteers.

Shelly and Doug Kaufman, Disaster Action Team: Shelley and Doug Kaufman joined the Disaster Action Team in March 2023. A dynamic husband-wife duo, they completed training for various positions in record time and are on track for a March promotion to be Disaster Action Team supervisors. What makes them exceptional is their drive to understand disaster management and Red Cross on a deeper level and serve however is needed, be it on standby for flooded dwellings disaster assessment or to go on scene to investigate a disaster for which we have little information. The staff and duty officers are increasingly putting them at the top of the list to call for needs in Rockland County.

Jadesha McGee, Client Casework: Jadesha is the shift supervisor and ensures that our volunteers have what they need to service clients with compassion and dedication.

Cathy Melly, Disaster Health Services: Always volunteers for cases and takes way beyond her share. She works all cases with exceptional care and professionalism to meet our clients’ disaster health needs.

Isabella Prasad, Financial Statical & Information: Isabella has been with our unit for just over a year now. She has supported our daily reporting requirements to the point that she completes the damage assessment reports accurately and on time each and every day, freeing the other team members to focus on the daily housing report. This equates to having reviewed, approved and reported on close to a thousand dwelling surveys.

Alina Shevtsova, Home Fire Campaign: Working with Alina Shevtsova has been an amazing whirlwind! She's managed to log one year of service in six months. She has done all types of work for us besides operations: interviewing new volunteers, training them, and anything we ask. She's always helping and working with others to save lives in HFC!