With our mission of serving East Texas communities, we’ve partnered with The American Red Cross to support their efforts of supplying essentials in times of disaster.

When contacted, The American Red Cross Executive Director, Karen Holt, shared several statistics on why this donation matters.

The statistics that moved us to provide this contribution include the following:

1. Nearly 170 times a day, a family experiences a home fire disaster.
2. About 12,500 times a day, the American Red Cross collects blood donations to help people in need.
3. About 1,500 times a day, the American Red Cross provides critical aid to military members, veterans, and their families.
4. More than 570,000 times a day, a child receives the measles or rubella vaccination from the Red Cross and their partners.
5. Nearly 13,000 times a day, someone receives lifesaving Red Cross training.

Upon sharing this data, our CARES Committee worked with Karen Holt to create a plan to disperse our $5,000 donation. We found that it would be most strategic to provide two donations of $2,500.

Here are more details on how these funds are applied:

1. $2,500 for Home Fire Assistance:

• For over 50 years, the Red Cross has provided home fire survivors shelter, meals, and recovery assistance. In 2021 alone, the American Red Cross helped after nearly 3,000 home fires here in East Texas. This funding would go directly to East Texas Families that suffer the loss of their belongings, shelter, clothing, food, and essentials. Within 2 hours of a reported home fire, Red Cross volunteers will arrive on the scene and provide basic emergency needs to disaster victims. Through direct financial assistance, food, shelter, clothing, prescriptions, eyeglasses, and/or dentures, we tailor our initiatives to their needs. Home Fire Assistance also includes Preparedness programs such as the Sound the Alarm program, which provides installation of free smoke alarms with a 10-year battery to anyone that requests it. The American Red Cross also has two programs they offer in schools - Pillowcase Project and Prepare with Pedro that educate K-5th graders on how to be prepared and stay safe in a disaster in a fun-interactive training.

2. $2,500 for when emergencies strike:

• Every day, people in our community and around the world face emergencies, and needs are mounting. More frequent and intense weather events are resulting in more human suffering. Over 40% of Americans lived in local counties hit by climate disasters in 2021. This drives the American Red Cross’s mission to reduce the hardships caused by more frequent and destructive climate-related disasters. As a result, these funds will be applied in instances of floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, large fires, or any of the multitude of emergencies we see each day across the county

• Additional application of these funds includes saving lives from home fires, aiding military families 24/7, and helping meet the constant demand for blood products.

We hope that this contribution to the American Red Cross continues to propel their mission and efforts of supplying much-needed assistance and support during disasters for our local community.