8/26 A Volunteer Day

I got up at 7 AM and drove to Kenosha to volunteer with the Red Cross. I must admit it felt good to have my red vest on again.

The set up is located in a school gym, so there's plenty of room. I was the only mental health person for most of the day, but a crisis team memer from a private agency stopped by for a while.

The nurse, Karen, told me that yesterday was a killer for her and she was alone.Today there were four nurses and me, and it wasn't busy at all. That's the way disaster work goes.

They do expect a big crowd tomorrow so I'll get up at 7 again to go in and help. I'll be the only Red Cross MH person, but there will be a crisis team there from Kenosha, so that will be great.

A bunch of nice people working today. Some are a little crabby--and I just have to realize how tired they are. They've been working for over a week between the two fires. Today was my first day so of course I wasn't overly tired yet.

I need to do my best to be understanding and not bug people too much. That's my goal.

Oh, when I walked into the gym I had a great surprise. My good friend Tony was there. He volunteers in public relations. It's so funny--we met in improv class, then were in a writing critique group together, and around Christmas discovered that we both volunteer with the Red Cross. We have so much in common.

I really enjoyed talking to the nurses today. One of them, Sandy, was at Hurrican Wilma the same time I was, and MH and Health shared an office, but we didn't remember each other. Amazing that we didn't meet while there.

On the drive home my friend Mary Jo called. She was at the kebab-a-thon and wondered when I was going to get there. So I had to break the news that she and Tom (her husband) would have to have fun without me. :) She's a sweetie.