Guest post by Kathryn Dunmore, Red Cross Blogger
April 6-12 is National Volunteer Week. Meet some of the inspring Red Cross volunteers who help us fulfil our mission in communities across Canada.
Canadian Red Cross volunteer Angelo Hsu has always understood the importance of community, especially in times of need.
April 6-12 is National Volunteer Week. Meet some of the inspring Red Cross volunteers who help us fulfil our mission in communities across Canada.
Canadian Red Cross volunteer Angelo Hsu has always understood the importance of community, especially in times of need.
When the ice storms hit Toronto just before the holidays in December 2013, Angelo spent approximately 380 hours over the course of the power outage helping those without heat and electricity in shelters set up by the Canadian Red Cross throughout the city.
“In that deployment, I helped establish a Red Cross presence in Scarborough and managed the shelters mostly in Agincourt but also at Pleasantview and McGregor,” he explained. “I was a shelter supervisor and front-line data collector so I could provide real-time feedback on how our services were performing and what resources were needed.”Despite his own family living without power for three days after the initial outage on December 20th, Angelo worked to ensure those left without resources in minus 20 winter conditions were warm and safe within the shelters throughout the city.
“My family was one of the lucky ones where we got power back on the third day, so I decided to spend Christmas in the shelters instead,” said Angelo. “The whole three week operation was definitely a challenging but rewarding process where, as the Agincourt shelter alone registered over 1,000 clients of which 205 were always sleeping overnight and had day traffic of up to 365 people per day.”
Angelo joined the Canadian Red Cross as a disaster management volunteer two years ago and has since assisted in logistics for the Alberta floods deployment and is now a Shelter Co-Lead in Toronto.
“I’ve always been s strong believer in establishing a stronger sense of community across the different Canadian societies, and the Red Cross allowed me to experience that value in practice while on deployments. It also gave me the opportunity to share and pass on those values to the communities we serve.”
