2010-2011 Highlights and Accomplishments

Miid-Illinois Chapter American Red Cross
Through June 30, 2011

This year in local disaster relief, we responded to 68 local disaster incidents and assisted 254 individuals with close to $36,200 in direct aid (food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and household items).

In November we responded to a massive fire at the South Fairview apartment complex. We assisted 19 families with their immediate emergency needs, provided mass care and opened up a shelter at MacArthur High School. 

Severe weather kept us busy this fiscal year. In July a straight-line wind incident in Sullivan damaged several homes and cut the power to the town.  In response to the devastation we opened a shelter at the First United Methodist Church.  Five people stayed in our shelter and we fed over 400 emergency workers and people for two days.  And in February a winter storm forced us to open two shelters, one in Macon County and one in Shelby County. We also had a shelter on standby in DeWitt County and we supported area fire departments that had opened up their firehouses to their communities in Blue Mound, Bethany and Findlay. Eleven people sought refugee from the winter storm in our shelters. 

We also provided mass care canteen services to 390 first responders on incident scenes, and fed 200 emergency personnel participating in 2 Shelby and Moultrie County Dive Team exercises this year.

We continue to be active in our communities’ emergency planning, participating in the DeWitt County shelter meeting, the Macon County Special Needs Assessment Panel, the Joint Information Center Committee, Local Emergency Planning Committees, and the Macon County Mental Health Board Disaster Council.  We also participate in numerous planning committees in Moultrie and Shelby counties. We also participated in the Macon County EMA hazmat drill, and the Decatur Airport tabletop drill.

In March we sponsored an Illinois Earthquake Preparedness Program presentation by Phillip Anello of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. Forty seven community partners ranging from hospital staff to fire chiefs attended this presentation. 

We sent 10 volunteers on National disaster operations this year ranging from tornadoes in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina, to flooding in North Dakota, Minnesota and Tennessee. 
 
The chapter provides community disaster education in each of our four counties. This year we educated more than 1,426 adults and children in disaster preparedness ranging from how to prepare for severe weather to home fires. People also learned about the American Red Cross and our role in the community and how they can volunteer and help save lives.

We hosted our fifth annual Illinois Emergency Services Institute at Millikin University in July of 2011 with more than 180 Red Cross volunteers and staff from throughout Illinois and several other states attending 25 disaster training classes over a period of five days.  Thirty one Mid-Illinois Chapter volunteers and staff took a total of 67 classes at this year’s Institute. 

We assisted with 88 Service to Armed Forces (SAF) cases this fiscal year.

This year we gave our Get to Know Us outreach program to 165 Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Navy Reserve individuals.
 
In Health & Safety, we trained nearly 12,000 people this fiscal year.  We currently have more than 200 Instructors, and both of these numbers are up dramatically from several years ago.
 
We taught Adult CPR/AED in several new school districts this year.  We trained and certified nearly 2,050 students and 284 teachers this year throughout our four counties, thanks in large part to a training grant from ADM. We also taught 1,332 kindergarten through 6th grade students in various Red Cross Health & Safety programs.

We helped collect more than 10,000 units of lifesaving blood this fiscal year at 336 blood drives throughout our four counties.

We have been busy helping you and your neighbors!