I did a radio interview yesterday and realized something quite interesting. While all of us in Red Cross world are still up to our eyeballs in Sandy, many in the public have sort of forgot about it. I realize it is not that people don’t care, it is just not in the headlines the way that it had been. School shootings, gun bans, and fiscal cliffs have pushed Sandy to the back burner, and that is the nature of the beast I guess. But, even though our world keeps turning and other news worthy incidents happen, the Red Cross is still on the East Coast with 1,000 volunteers on the ground.
So on this Finally Friday, I would like to throw a little bit of Sandy trivia at you.
I loved Jim Carrey as the Riddler, and I would be lying if I wasn’t excited about being able to use this pic in our Red Cross blog.
Thanks to the public’s generous support, the Red Cross has provided food, shelter, relief supplies and comfort to tens of thousands of Sandy survivors. Our work so far includes:
- Serving more than 10.5 million meals and snacks.
- Handing out more than 6.9 million relief items, including cold weather items and clean-up supplies.
- Providing more than 108,000 health services and emotional support contacts for people who have been living in very tough conditions.
- Mobilizing more than 16,500 trained workers to help people affected by Sandy. About 90 percent of them are volunteers from all over the country.
- Overall, a range of groups provided more than 158,000 shelter stays for Sandy, and the Red Cross provided more than 81,000 of those stays.
Not too shabby.
Now, if you are a visual person, then you probably just skimmed those bullets. (I am a visual person, and I hate reading lots of words about numbers on the internet, too. So no judgement here.) For you, I included this mini video. Just kick up your feet, pop some popcorn, and enjoy! After all, it is Friday, and we can relax a little.
