HYANNIS – An official with the American Red Cross of Massachusetts recently gave insight on the organization’s partnership with Barnstable County to recruit over 200 new volunteers to work at regional shelters this winter.
Spokesperson Jeff Hall said shelters will focus on helping at-risk populations like elderly people or people with young children during severe weather events that cause outages.
Hall highlighted how helping neighbors out following a storm can be a rewarding experience.
“You’re helping people whose first choice is not to be in that shelter, but you’re really giving them something while different aspects of their life come back together,” Hall said.
A series of walkthroughs this fall will give prospective volunteers a better idea of their responsibilities.
Hall said local officials and the American Red Cross will be present at the events, which will cover shelter operations like food handling and protocol for using bathrooms and showers.
Volunteers will need to complete an online training course that goes over how to diffuse emotional situations when large groups of people are in a confined space due to a power outage.
“There could be some stress that comes along with that, and we want to make sure that people are compassionately trained to handle people maybe not at their best moment in their life,” Hall said.
All walkthroughs are being held on Saturday mornings from 10am to 11:30am on the following dates:
- October 29 – Barnstable Intermediate School
- November 12 – Falmouth High School
- December 3 – Sandwich High School
- December 17 – Dennis Yarmouth High School
Those interested in volunteering can register online here and take the roughly 3-hour training course. People can email [email protected] for more information.
Hall said that shelters are a stop-gap measure until power is restored and people can return to their homes.
“We know it’s not necessarily everybody’s first choice, but it’s a survival issue when temperatures are very cold out,” Hall said.
“It’s for a few days in a bad winter storm, but it makes of world of difference to the people that need the help,” Hall said.
By Brian Engles, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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