Story written by David Susa, EMPOWERED Member:

On June 24^th 2009, three EMPOWERED members, Patrick and Audrie Goodwin and David Susa, joined Red Cross Disaster Services Volunteers, Kathy Dwyer, Sarah Morrissey for a community outreach event.  The group joined The Hillsborough County Hispanic Affairs Liaison, Tony Morejon, for the start of a series of presentations to the Hispanic community regarding natural disaster preparations.

The event took place at the Iglesia Fuente de Vida Internacional located in Plant City and started around 7:45pm with approximately 20 participants. The presentation emphasized the procedures, actions, local facilities and available services in the case that a hurricane hits the Tampa Bay area. The speakers also interacted with the participants providing real life scenarios and additional information about home insurance and immigration services.

As EMPOWERED members, we used this opportunity to talk more about our organization and the services the Red Cross provides.  Additionally we distributed flyers and information about “Disaster Preparedness and Relief” for the participants to take home and talk to others.  We were thrilled to be able to use our “amazing Spanish skills” as well as the expo board that EMPOWERED created at our Annual Meeting in June. This certainly was an opportunity to see another side of the Red Cross mission, not only helping others in need, but also providing practical awareness and adequate education for the members in our community to prevent exponential losses from natural disasters.

I strongly encourage other EMPOWERED members to join us for more events like this one! People really appreciate your time and it was a good opportunity to interact with local officials and the programs they manage. Looks like there will be another event in August; hope to see more of you then!

On Saturday, June 20th, 2009, EMPOWERED and USF Red Cross Club hosted the Inaugural Race for Red Cross at Al Lopez Park.  After months of planning, seeking sponsorships, registering runners, securing vendors, and much more, the event was finally here.  The heat of the summer, that soaked every runner and volunteer in sweat (even at 7am in the morning), could not deter nearly 250 runners who came out to “run the race for a better tomorrow.”

Joshua Epperson (18) took the gold for the men, coming in at 17:05 and Gabrielle Vazquez (19) secured the first place amongst the females with a time of 21:49.  Both winners went home with $100 gift certificates to Fit2Run, Gallagher’s Steakhouse and Planet Beach.  Congratulations to you both and thank you to our first place sponsors for donating the gift certificates!

Top Male and Female runners in each age group went home with either a $25 gift certificate to GameWorks or $25 to Fit2Run and Road ID (combined).  Congratulations to all of our age level winners.  Florida Road Race Management will be posting times on www.coolrunning.com in the next couple of days.

We would like to thank every single runner, volunteer and sponsor who supported this event.  Thanks to each of you we were able to raise nearly $8,000 and secure additional in-kind donations that valued nearly $27,000.

If you are interested in seeing more photos from the event, you may access Finish Line Photos from John Schackel or other wonderful shots from Lake’s Photography.  Again, thank you for your support.  We could not have done it without you!

Happy Birthday EMPOWERED!

June 1^st marked the first day of hurricane season as well as EMPOWERED’s first ever annual meeting! 

The meeting began with the introduction of EMPOWERED’s new 2009-2010 Leadership Council.  Congratulations to Joana Urie, Richard Merritt, Patrick Goodwin, Sara McMillan, Heather Snyder, Katie Lenover, Amanda Cullison-Hay, Andrew Nelson, and Richard Anello, Jr!  Check out the Leadership section of our website as there are still several open positions on the Leadership Council.   Anyone interested in applying should send your resume along with a statement of intent outlining your specific position(s) of interest and qualifications to empowered@usa.redcross.org.

Also on Monday night, as part of our service commitment to the Red Cross, EMPOWERED members created over 80 comfort kits for victims of natural disasters.  Red Cross volunteers will deliver these comfort kits at the scene of disasters such as fires and floods.  Our hard work will soon be used as the Red Cross has already responded to more than 3 disasters displacing 10 people just this month! 

Don’t forget EMPOWERED’s first 5K event will be held June 20^th at Al Lopez Park!  Contact empowered@usa.redcross.org if you are interested in running or volunteering.  Volunteers are also needed to stuff gift bags for the runners.  If you can help, please be at the Red Cross Headquarters in Tampa on June 17^th at 6pm.

Help support our fundraising event for the Red Cross Tampa Bay Chapter, Saturday, June 20th from 5am-9am. We need volunteers to help our inaugural 5K run smoothly. If you are not running and would be interested, please email us at empowered@usa.redcross.org. In your email, please include your preferred shirt size. We cannot guarantee the correct size, but will do the best we can to try and accommodate.

Thank you for making this event a tremendous success! We hope to see you there.

Leave a comment and let everyone know what a great time you had!

We will be delivering live saving information to families in at-risk communities and educating them on what the American Red Cross can do for them during times of a disaster.

Even if you are only available for a few hours – WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!!

When: Wednesday, June 10th 9am-3pm

Where: Moffitt Cancer Center at Good Samaritan Mission

Interested? Please contact Karen Bird at birdk@usa.redcross.org or call Janie Koike at (813) 342-4820 x. 858 for more information or to volunteer your time in this much needed effort.

We need your help!  From May 10 – 25, Target is allowing its Facebook “friends” and store guests to chose which of 10 national charities and causes-including the American Red Cross-should receive a portion of $3 million in charitable giving from Target

We need you to ask your own Facebook friends to help us out by voting for Red Cross every day through May 25th.  Go to Target’s Bullseye Gives page on Facebook and vote Red Cross!  “Your vote = your gift.” 

 Instructions:

 1.  Login or Sign Up on Facebook

Visit http://www.facebook.com/target

Click “Submit Vote” button next to Red Cross

 2.  If this is your first time voting, a box will appear that asks you to “Accept” this application. Please accept it.

 3.  In subsequent voting, this step will be skipped and you’ll be navigated directly to step 6.

 4.  A box will appear that allows you to type a message to your Facebook friends telling them why you chose to vote for the Red Cross and encouraging them to do the same.

 5.  What you type in this box will appear in your friends’ news streams.

 6.  That’s it! Congratulations!

Read more…

Red Cross disaster relief focuses on meeting people’s immediate emergency disaster-caused needs. When a disaster threatens or strikes, the Red Cross provides shelter, food, and health and mental health services to address basic human needs. In addition to these services, the core of Red Cross disaster relief is the assistance given to individuals and families affected by disaster to enable them to resume their normal daily activities independently.

ARC Tampa Bay Chapter Statistics – April 2009

Responded to 45 incidents
Assisted 71 families and 186 individuals
Cost of $36,000

 Looking to get involved…Become a shelter worker.  Email empowered@usa.redcross.org  and put Shelter Worker as the subject. Also follow the American Red Cross Tampa Bay Chapter on Twitter, to stay up to date on the latest news and disaster responses.