Before a Red Cross volunteer can deploy to a disaster, there’s a lot of work behind the scenes. The mission is to get people to the right place and make sure they are taken care of so they can do their number one job – helping people recover and rebuild their lives.

One of the volunteers who makes that happen is Mary Hughes. She has volunteered for the Red Cross since 2013, and now works as a regional deployment lead in our Southeastern Pennsylvania region.

Mary helps volunteers get ready to deploy by ensuring they “know what to bring, that they are prepared, and that they know how to assess the situation.”

She tells them what to pack and reminds them that on a deployment the minimum time commitment is two weeks away from home, and may be longer. She also advises them of hazards or severe weather conditions they may face so they can stay safe.

As the world’s largest humanitarian network, the Red Cross responds to about 65,000 disasters a year, most of them home fires. Mary has deployed several times herself.

“Where I send people out on deployment I could also deploy and I’ll be on the other end as staffing, receiving people.”

Throughout her years of volunteering, there is one family Mary can’t forget. A father had gone to work while his son attended school. During the day, a fire killed the man’s wife, who was the boy’s mother.

The Red Cross helped the man afford to get his wife’s ashes back to their home country and coordinate with the foreign embassy to make the arrangements.

“It all changed in an instant for them and hopefully the Red Cross, their help in some way, was a positive for him, even though it was a very unfortunate circumstance.”

Each disaster is unique but there is a common thread that ties them together.

“The clientele are all different, but they all have the same need and desire – to kind of get back to normal.”

Mary first volunteered for the Red Cross in high school as a switchboard operator. She temporarily stopped volunteering after she said she may have cut off one too many callers.

The desire to help people never left, and when she retired from her work as a civilian employee for the Navy and the Air Force, she drove by a Red Cross office and her life changed.

“It didn’t take long for me to figure I was not going to sit home and watch TV.”

Mary said her favorite part about volunteering for the Red Cross is “even though I’m an introvert, it’s the people interaction and assisting people.”

The Red Cross responds to a disaster every 8 minutes, and that couldn’t happen without volunteers like Mary, who often work out of public view.

“I think it’s pretty important because if there aren’t any behind the scenes people then it’s hard to get the volunteers out there, especially with all of the things that they have to consider when they’re deploying.”

Mary’s service has even inspired her husband to volunteer, after he overheard her coordinating for the Red Cross on a call.

“I was on the phone with somebody and all of a sudden he was a man possessed. He took all the classes, and now he seems to enjoy volunteering himself. There’s something for everybody.”

Mary Hughes certainly leads like Clara Barton. If she makes you want to become a Red Cross volunteer, visit redcross.org/volunteertoday.

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Editor’s Note: In commemoration of Red Cross Month and Women’s History Month, we are publishing a series of #LeadLikeClara profiles featuring local women volunteer leaders who emulate the leadership characteristics of Red Cross founder Clara Barton.

Photo: Mary Hughes, Photo by Konrad Jones / American Red Cross

- Written by Jenny Farley