Disaster Relief and Community Disaster Education
When a disaster threatens or strikes, the Red Cross is there. This year we responded to 32 local single family home fire disasters. We also responded to the historic Indiana floods and tornadoes in Monroe & Owen Counties in June of 2008. We provided casework assistance to 181 affected individuals and families, distributed 731 clean up and comfort kits, and provided 365 emergency meals to flood victims.

Because being prepared can make your family and community safer and sometimes minimize injury and destruction, we provided disaster response and preparedness education information to 119 persons in the community.

Health and Safety Services
From first aid, CPR and AED training to swimming and lifeguarding, American Red Cross programs help people lead safer and healthier lives. This year, 4,258 individuals learned lifesaving skills through First Aid, CPR, AED and mission-related caregiving classes offered by the chapter. In Aquatics, we taught lifeguard, parent and child aquatics, water skills and water safety instructor training to 1,940 individuals.

We have 209 Instructors teaching Red Cross certified lifesaving in our chapter jurisdiction.

International Services
The international tracing program helps local families find relatives with whom they have lost contact because of a natural disaster, war or internal conflict.

Armed Forces Emergency Services
The American Red Cross provides communication between those in the Armed Forces and their families. We have a worldwide network that reaches service members wherever they are to communicate a birth, death or illness. This year we provided emergency connections for sixty-one local families and their loved ones serving in U.S. armed forces.

Lifeline Medical Alert System
This program enables individuals with disabilities or chronic illness to live independently at home. The personal emergency response system puts them immediately in touch with help and gives family members peace of mind and assures prompt assistance is close at hand. Our program served 669 clients last year, and currently has over 500 subscribers in our 10-county area.

A Note About Volunteers
We depend on volunteers of all ages and backgrounds to carry on our work. Volunteers constitute 97 percent of our total workforce, serving as members of the board, instructors teaching lifesaving skills, disaster action team members, office administrators, event organizers and more. This year we hosted two Americorps Vista volunteers in service.

This year, 586 volunteers made the work of the chapter possible, contributing thousands of hours in all of our community services, as well as traveling to other regions to provide emergency services to persons affected by disasters.

For a downloadable version of this report, please see our 2008 Annual Report (PDF)