By SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post
As Red Cross shelters for flood victims begin to close, the organization is still helping with relief efforts in other ways.
Red Cross Disaster Program Specialist Teri Layton said the Mound City shelter closed last week and another in Buckner will close this week. Layton said the closings are a good thing.
“It’s a wonderful thing. That means… waters are going down, the folks that were in the shelter were able to find transitional housing.”
The Red Cross is continuing relief efforts in other ways through providing disaster emergency supplies for families in areas where water is receding and doing further case work in those areas. Layton said there are different levels of relief efforts and as those continue, donations are always necessary and volunteers are always needed.
“If your heart is moved by all the hard work that people do to help their community, please get involved with the Red Cross, get trained up so when the next event happens, you’re trained and ready,” Layton said. “When we open up a shelter, we don’t just throw cots up inside and leave. People have to be there to help maintain the shelter, help with the needs of the clients in the shelter, we need people willing to help serve food… there’s just lots of different ways people can be of assistance in a large scale event and the day-to-day events.”
The Greater Kansas City Chapter of the American Red Cross has 34 counties in the surrounding area on the Missouri and Kansas side, including northwest Missouri counties.
“I work with seven of those counties… directly with their emergency managers,” Layton said. “We make sure that we have good volunteer capacity in our communities and we work on preparedness, we work with their families who are affected by everyday emergencies like home fires. We do all kinds of stuff just to make our communities ready for the next event that happens, because it’s not an if it’s a when. The more prepared we are, the better we can respond and recover.”
For more information about area Red Cross relief efforts or volunteering, click here.