Volunteers are the life blood of the Canadian Red Cross. Volunteers help respond to both local and larger-scale emergencies and disasters including house fires and the effects of severe weather like floods or evacuations.
Red Cross volunteers recently helped coordinate relief in communities across the country in response to severe winter weather, particularly in Ontario where nearly 300,000 homes were without power, some for more than a week. Some volunteers were involved in logistics to ensure supplies were delivered to shelters and coordinated the scheduling of volunteers to staff each shelter while others managed shelters, helped cleaned cots, and coordinated food distribution to all of the shelters.
The Canadian Red Cross is currently recruiting more volunteers to help in local emergencies and disasters like the recent ice storms. Visit www.redcross.ca/volunteer to volunteer in the Greater Toronto Area or www.redcross.ca.
You can read more about how the Red Cross responds in local emergencies here.