The American Red Cross Chapter of North Central Wisconsin honored its volunteers this week.
Volunteers were treated to a recognition ceremony, picnic and Wood Chucks game after.
Here are some winners of special recognition awards.
Wendy Glassford of Marathon, WI received the New Volunteer of the Year Award. This award is given to a new volunteer who demonstrates exceptional motivation and potential to serve their community through the organization. She received the award based on a variety of reasons, including early leadership with the development and maintenance of the WisSAFE project for the entire region. Wendy’s commitment and follow through have been outstanding with auditing and maintaining training records, communications with volunteers and many other countless administrative tasks. Her willingness to adapt or take on additional tasks, and eagerness to train for new responsibilities is a great asset to our chapter. We are also thrilled she has recently begun training to become a Red Cross disaster dispatcher.
Carol Miller, of Rhinelander, WI earned the Exceptional Leadership Award which is given to an individual that demonstrates exceptional guidance and support for other volunteers, staff, or clients served by the Red Cross. As a regional Disaster Health Services/Staff Wellness volunteer Carol is an exceptional leader and furthermore recently accepted a leadership position for an 18-state Division. She has organized and led the effort to standardize Health Services Shelter kits throughout the state, while frequently providing training to Red Cross Disaster staff and volunteers. In 2016, she deployed twice, Carols efforts help to bring out the best in our volunteers and we are blessed to have her.
John Grosman of Woodruff, WI received the Outstanding Outreach Award. His work has strengthened our community outreach through innovative partnering and volunteer recruitment. This amazing work has provided education regarding all lines of service to communities’ members who are interested in actively supporting the Red Cross mission. John has led and organized disaster meetings, responds to disaster calls and is a Red Cross government liaison for five counties in the North Central Chapter. His exceptional outreach will provide benefits to the communities he has worked with for many years to come.
Tom Osowski of Nekoosa, WI is this year’s Unsung Hero Award recipient. Tom has been busy this year with five DRO’s Louisville, KY flooding, Winter River flooding, Mississippi flooding, and both the Texas spring floods and again during Texas tornado and flooding. His volunteer disaster response work makes a large difference in delivering Red Cross services, which can often go unnoticed. This amazing volunteer also participates in Smoke Alarm installations, local sheltering and continued Red Cross trainings; representing the foundation from which community efforts are built upon.
Tim Majcen of Oconto Falls, WI received the Above and Beyond Award for his exceptional willingness to “continually step-up” when the Red Cross and the community need them. Tim embodied the mission of the Red Cross and has been involved in disaster response in four counties, reliably attends disaster meetings and trainings, and is always ready to represent the Red Cross in our chapter. He is truly a proven Red Cross community partner who actively demonstrates his commitment by pursuing national disaster relief operation assignments, engaging other volunteers and promoting the mission.
The Red Cross is a volunteer organization lead by a local board of directors with more than 90% of the workforce comprised of volunteers across several lines of service. Each fiscal year, 2,700 registered volunteers across Wisconsin donated their time to support initiatives such as:
• Responded to almost 900 local (Wisconsin) emergencies, mostly residential fires, to provide emergency needs and a shoulder to lean on. Highly trained workers deploy to national disasters spanning from Texas floods to Canadian wildfires.
• Trained more than 70,000 people in life-saving skills such as CPR to water safety skills.
• Provided 24/7/365 emergency support to military members and their families.
• Installed nearly 2,500 smoke alarms!
• Educated more than 3,500 youth through emergency preparedness lessons via schools, youth groups, summer camps and more.
• Ran blood drives which collect the life-saving gift of blood.
To learn more about becoming an American Red Cross volunteer, please visit redcross.org/volunteer to see how your skills and compassion may become part of this humanitarian organization.
