In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

In an article, “‘Cross’ My Heart And Hope To Volunteer,” the New York Times describes the clever new advertising campaign of Red Cross of Greater New York to recruit new disaster volunteers.

The Red Cross received special permission from New York Governor David Paterson to use their twist on the 32-year-old ”I ♥ NY” logo used in the campaign (see inset right).

According to the article:

The ads feature current members of the Red Cross Reserves, representing the gorgeous mosaic that is New York in their ages, races, ethnicities, accents and appearances… In video clips on the Web site, the volunteers discuss why they are donating their time to the New York Red Cross, offering reasons that range from Hurricane Katrina to wanting to help build a community of caring New Yorkers to giving back to the Red Cross for assistance previously received from the organization.

There are currently 6,200 members of the Reserves, the New York Red Cross says, who qualify to help in the event of large-scale mishaps, man-made or natural, by taking a six-hour training session. The goal of the campaign is to increase the ranks of the reserve force by more than half, to 10,000.

“All of us in New York agree we should be prepared for the possibility of catastrophic events in our future,” says Terry Bischoff, chief executive at the American Red Cross in Greater New York. “We’ve determined we need 10,000 New Yorkers trained as Red Cross volunteers before the next disaster strikes.”

Anyone interested in volunteering can go to the new website set up for the campaign: www.iredcross.org. And, by the way, March is Red Cross Month.