MOUNT VERNON — With several fires in the Knox County area recently, the American Red Cross of Knox County has been kept busy responding to the incidents.
According to Dee Hoeflich, a staff member of the Red Cross in Knox County, the Red Cross provides three basic services to the victims of fires and other disasters: food, clothing and shelter. Occasionally the organization will also provide medications if they are deemed essential to a victim’s health and well-being. The Red Cross also provides support to firefighters and other first-responders.
“If the fire department requests it, we’ll provide water, Gatorade and sandwiches,” said Hoeflich. She also noted that the Red Cross provided 60 to 75 sandwiches to first-responders on Tuesday while a fire was burning at the Rivers Edge Hunting and Fishing building on West Gambier Street. “We [the Red Cross] don’t show up on the scene until we’re asked to,” said Hoeflich.
Dan Werner began his duties as executive director of the American Red Cross of Knox County on Jan. 28. But for about two or 2 1/2 months previously, there was no director for the county Red Cross, according to Hoeflich. Hoeflich and Keith Hughes are both staff members of the Red Cross in Knox County, and during the interim period with no director, they both picked up added duties to keep the organization running as usual. Now that Werner has assumed his duties as executive director of the organization, their extra responsibilities have been alleviated.
Werner is quite satisfied with his first few days on the job and said that one of his responsibilities was to keep a “finger on the pulse of the community” to see what is needed from the Red Cross in Mount Vernon and the Knox County area. However, he also noted that his primary task as executive director is raising funds for the organization. He noted that in financial terms, the Red Cross is “in real good shape now,” but “in some areas we’re a little down.” One such area is disaster services and funds are lower than expected because there have been more fires than expected. There were two fires within Werner’s first few days on the job.
The Red Cross of Knox County has a fiscal year that begins on July 1 and ends on June 30. During the last fiscal year, from July 2006 until June 2007, the Knox County Red Cross distributed about $20,000 in disaster funds, helping support 35 families, including 52 children under the age of 18. Since the beginning of the current fiscal year which began last July, the organization has distributed nearly $14,000 in disaster funds for victims and spent about $650 for first-responder support. The majority of the Red Cross’ services come from volunteers, and “right now we have a little over 200” volunteers for all services that the Knox County Red Cross provides, according to Hoeflich.
The American Red Cross of Knox County is organizing a fundraiser, called a Heroes Breakfast, for Wednesday, March 19.
