ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Each morning on “Breakfast with Bridgett,” there are interesting stories and interviews plus weather and traffic to help you plan the day.
Bridgett talked to John Lanzetti, the lead coordinator for the Red Cross Disaster Action Team. He said there’s a shortage of volunteers and they need people to apply.
Since 1964, the team of volunteers has helped people in the community impacted by home fires and natural disasters.
The team is responding to 10 to 20 calls per week across Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties.
They are the organization’s first responders when you hear that the Red Cross is assisting victims or families after a devastating loss.
“We’re not just talking about single-family fires here. We’re talking about large apartment fires where, and in today’s society, apartments are very hard to get, it’s a system where we have to find out how many people are impacted. And of course, our job is to you know provide the comfort. So we have to think about opening a shelter maybe in that situation, providing food and comfort and necessities until the folks that were impacted can go ahead and recover,” Lanzetti said.
And Lanzetti said there are several volunteer roles within the Red Cross, but the Disaster Action Team is a good place to start.
“So you can come in as an observer and go on a couple calls and say, ‘You know, this is something I really want to do.’ Or because the DAT is the one that can really expose you to the rest of the Red Cross, you might say, ‘Hey look, I want to go into sheltering.’ Or maybe I should go over into the home fire camping. So it’s probably the best leaping board that we have to get to other areas,” he said.
Volunteers are on call four times per month for six-hour shifts at a time. For more information, watch the full interview or click here.
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