Ian Dalsin works with computers for a living, so when he was looking for a volunteer role, he wanted something more hands on.
“I often get stuck behind a screen for extended periods of time,” says the Edmonton-based IT (information technology) consultant. “It’s nice to be able to step out and deal with people face to face.”
Ian started volunteering with the Canadian Red Cross as a Personal Disaster Responder on a team that helps people affected by emergencies like house fires by providing them with accommodation, food and clothing, as needed.
“When they’re at their worst and we show up out of nowhere, it’s quite a relief,” says Ian.
Of course, supporting people has shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic to phone calls rather than ‘face to face’ responses. But not all responses can be handled virtually.
In April 2020, the northern Alberta city of Fort McMurray was faced with several challenges at once: a massive flood that affected about 13,000 residents during the early stages of a pandemic and an ongoing economic downturn.
Ian travelled north to Fort McMurray to provide assistance to people in the community. It was his first response to a large-scale disaster.
“People were so grateful to see us setting up that even folks who weren’t impacted stopped by to say thanks,” says Ian. “They’d dealt with us after the fire and knew that we’d do the same work again.”
In 2016, the Horse River wildfires forced more than 80,000 people in the Wood Buffalo region to evacuate. Four years later, almost to the day, the 2020 floods caused some of the same families to leave their homes again.
As people in Fort McMurray were cleaning up after the 2020 spring floods, Red Cross staff and volunteers were on the ground setting up registration tents, putting on gloves and face masks, and following other COVID-19 health protocols to help people in the affected communities.
“COVID added a whole other layer to the response and to the disaster,” explains Ian. “Beneficiaries were nervous, but we knew we were doing everything to keep everyone as safe as we could.”
Late in 2020, as the nights grew longer and the cold set in, Alberta’s climbing COVID-19 numbers forced the province into another lockdown.
For Ian, it was an especially dark time. In December, his father unexpectedly passed away. Stuck at home, he found little to distract him from his grief. That’s when he got a call from the Red Cross asking if he could help build a field hospital. He jumped at the opportunity to use his skills to support Albertans once again.
Twenty volunteers donned their red vests, hard hats and masks to help assemble tents and components of the Red Cross field hospital inside Edmonton’s Butterdome sports arena. The field hospital was deployed at the request of the Alberta Ministry of Health.
“We hope we don’t need this field hospital,” says Ian, “but it felt good to be involved, a little bit less powerless when you’re watching the news, and saying ‘I helped with that. I had a hand in making sure that ran smoothly.’”
Ian says in future, he hopes to do some international work with the Canadian Red Cross, using his background in IT and his recent experience building a field hospital to help other countries and communities in their time of need.
There are many volunteer opportunities available - For more information visit www.redcross.ca/volunteer
