Volunteering with American Red Cross

[premedmind]

Anybody have any good/worthwhile experiences volunteering with the organization? Would you guys reccomend volunteering for them?

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[jmurphy2005]

Anybody have any good/worthwhile experiences volunteering with the organization? Would you guys reccomend volunteering for them?

It's not glamorous or anything, but I volunteered with disaster services with the Red Cross. It was mostly long hard work, in hot, hot weather (Florida hurricane season: no electricity=no air conditioning), but it's super rewarding. There's something really amazing about helping entire communities recovering from large-scale disasters. In addition, you can respond to small disasters, like fires. that's pretty much just devastating, since often the families affected may not have a place to go, and there's no broad scale shelter to refer them to. Go for it! If you hate it, you can always stop. But odds are you'll find something you really enjoy, and meet wonderful people while you're doing it.

 

[ADeadLois]

Anybody have any good/worthwhile experiences volunteering with the organization? Would you guys reccomend volunteering for them?

It would probably be only worthwhile if you are able to get enough training to be able to go on national deployment. It will take a few solid days of training (as well as experience responding to "smaller" disasters like house fires).

Since the Red Cross is a volunteer-run, chapter-centered organization, human resources and organization tend to be lacking. Some chapters are excellent and efficiently run, while others are near-bankrupt and shockingly disorganized.