American Red Cross CEO & President Gail McGovern on CNBC

American Red Cross CEO & President Gail McGovern discusses how new technologies are changing not only how but who is making charitable contributions around the world. See below for the full version of the program "Executive Vision: Leadership in Action."

"I didn't know the Red Cross did so much."

Anita Cruz and her son Adrian

Anita Cruz and her 22-year-old son, Adrian, were about to sit down to dinner in their Bronx apartment when some of the lights went out. Then, they noticed a strange smell. After checking the electrical outlets and finding nothing, they saw smoke above a skylight in the hallway, alerted the neighbors and called 911.

Firefighters soon arrived, but also had difficulty finding the source of the smoke. To do so, they used chainsaws to break open the roof and ceiling of the apartment’s rooms (Anita and Adrian lived on the top floor). They finally discovered that the smoke had come from faulty electrical fixture in the kitchen ceiling. “In the end,” Anita said, “everything was destroyed,” making the apartment where she had lived for 27 years “unlivable.”

The Red Cross arrived at the scene to help, offering to arrange temporary housing for Anita, who decided to stay with her brother. But they referred Anita to different agencies and gave her valuable information about her legal rights as a tenant. She was grateful for all the “little details” she hadn’t know about, which helped to ease her difficult situation. The Red Cross also gave Anita and Adrian emergency financial assistance for food and clothing.

Anita said, “I think the Red Cross is great. I had not personally seen them in action until now. I’ve seen them in action when it comes to big disasters, but not smaller ones. I didn’t know how much they can help. Now that I do, I will definitely tell others.”

Anita Cruz from Bronx, NY

"There's nothing that compares to what it feels like to help people."

As a recent psychology graduate looking for something fulfilling to do before embarking on graduate school adventures, I found the idea of working in the Disaster Response department of the NY Red Cross through the AmeriCorps program uniquely exciting. Although from the job description, interviews, trainings and such, I had some idea of what I was in for, no words or textbook descriptions can fully relay what one can experience in this program.

AmeriCorps members working in Red Cross Disaster Response take several weeks of training with the goal of becoming a "Full Responder"—someone authorized to respond to local emergencies and provide assistance without the aid of a trainer/partner. Throughout the training, but especially in the beginning, I was a bit intimidated by what I saw as the huge, extremely important responsibility given to each responder.

I tried to focus on working the computer program that's used, the proper lingo, and other intricacies of Red Cross standard protocol. These technical/mechanical things would sometimes make me so nervous I felt as if I was back in college during finals week; they started to distract me from the bigger truth that I tell anyone who asks me: "Why are you doing this?" The answer is: "To help people."

On my first disaster response, seeing what a client goes through, I remember thinking how very real everything suddenly became. In this instance, the Red Cross was helping a young woman whose home had been destroyed in a fire. The woman lived alone in NY; her family lived in another state. I immediately felt for her; at one time I had been in this exact situation. I snapped out of it and remembered to try to not make this about me, or relate to people so personally. Studying psychology, I learned that if I were to relate to every sad instance I come across, with no healthy boundary, I would go home crying every day.

As the client surveyed her destroyed belongings, her tears, angst, and shock were not only understandable, but likely inevitable. At one point, the responder I was training with, Diane (who is one of my favorite people at the Red Cross), was explaining to the client what assistance the Red Cross could offer her. I compare the feeling I got to watching a movie you know will make you cry, yet, you watch anyway.

The responder spoke to the client with objectivity, balanced with genuine warmth, giving this young woman the strength and clarity she needed during this difficult time. The client wasn't the only person comforted; I felt grateful to witness this exchange, and comforted to see Red Cross responders humbly helping their fellow human beings. As they went down the list of things to do, I brought over some water and a couple snacks. When they were finished speaking, the young woman looked at me and said "Thank you so much. It's nice to know people actually do this."

That moment was the first of many to follow when I realized how vital it is to remember my ultimate goal in these response calls. Sure, it's important to study and know the rules and protocol to be followed. But there's nothing that compares to what it feels like to help people. I remind myself of this each time I start a response shift. I anticipate many more stories to come that reflect this truth.

–Cynthia Martinez, AmeriCorps NPRC Member

Brooklyn Tornado Story: "The Red Cross gave me a sense of relief"

Phyllis Ebanks (Photo: Anita Salzberg)

As Phyllis Ebanks and Sherry Dowling, who lived on different floors of the same apartment building on Quincy Street in Brooklyn, made their way home on the evening of September 16th, they had no idea that their building had just been hit by a tornado.

They each arrived home sometime after 7 pm, only to be greeted by the chaotic sight of blown-out windows, fire trucks lining the street, yellow police tape cordoning off the building and the sounds of despair. Neighbors soon explained to them that they were struck by a freak storm. “The roofs from the buildings next to ours had blown onto the top of our building, caving in the ceiling of the room where I sleep!” Phyllis recalled.

Due to possible structural damage, she and Sherry soon were told that all tenants from their building were barred from entering, that it could take weeks for that situation to change. Neither knew what they were going to do. After learning that the Red Cross might be able to assist, the women separately made their way to the New York Red Cross Chapter headquarters in Manhattan, hoping for real help.




“The Red Cross gave me a sense of relief,” said Phyllis. “Desperate for information, I poured out questions like crazy and not once did the Red Cross people tell me that I’d have to wait for the answers. They helped me with money for food and put me in a hotel right away; they didn’t leave me wondering where I was going to stay.”

“I love the Red Cross,” said Sherry, who received emergency housing, a stipend for food, and referrals to city agencies for further services. “If it wasn’t for them, I probably wouldn’t know my next step—what I was going to eat, where I was going to sleep. They really helped a lot.”

Phyllis Ebanks and Sherry Dowling from Brooklyn, NY

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"Working with the Red Cross has given me more empathy and more understanding."

When the first plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, Bob McGrath was working with a colleague at a small PR firm in downtown Manhattan. From one of their offices they could see the smoke, but not the buildings themselves. The TV in their offices was tuned to CNBC, and all too soon, they understood the gravity of the situation.

Like many New Yorkers, Bob urgently wanted to be able to help in some way. He called one of his firm’s clients, St. Clare’s Hospital and Health Center on West 51st Street in Manhattan. Did they need help with public affairs? They did, and, by 11:30 am, Bob was at St. Clare’s, which was set up as an overflow for triage from the World Trade Center. He spent the next two days carrying out the public information function for the hospital, speaking with the media and with family members searching for loved ones who had been at the Trade Center the morning of 9/11.

Bob, who had been a member of the Red Cross marketing advisory council since 1998, then received a call from American Red Cross in Greater New York’s Chief Information Officer, Mark Edelman. The Chapter’s public affairs staff had been working 24/7 handling media inquires, and Mark needed another person on board. Since there was less for Bob to do at St. Clare’s because of the small number of casualties, he came to the NY Red Cross on Friday.

Bob divided his time at the Red Cross between its headquarters (then located on Amsterdam Avenue and West 66th Street), a Red Cross tent set up on the West Side Highway just north of the World Trade Center, and the City’s Family Assistance Center near the Chelsea Piers. He responded to media inquiries and arranged for interviews with Red Cross personnel and others. At the Family Assistance Center he worked with the general public, explaining where they could get further help.

The following Monday, when Wall Street reopened for business, Bob played an important role in helping the Red Cross staff to navigate police checkpoints in order to set up aid stations in lower Manhattan. That day, Red Cross mental-health staff from across the country greeted and provided support to commuters throughout the Financial District. “They didn’t know the city, they didn’t know all the accents, but they knew how to give people support,” said Bob. “When people came out of the subways they saw Red Cross folks with water and pamphlets, literally ready to hug and to talk.”

Working with the Red Cross after 9/11 spurred Bob to become more involved with the Greater NY Red Cross. Nine years later, he is one of the Chapter’s most active public affairs volunteers. “I felt blessed to be a part of the NY Red Cross on September 11th,” said Bob. “This organization has helped thousands of people get on the road to recovery in the aftermath of unimaginable devastation, loss and pain, and my volunteer work with the Red Cross has made me a stronger, more patient, more empathic New Yorker.”

Bob McGrath from New York, NY

One Fire, Two Dramatic Red Cross Stories

Niketut Koriastuti (left), Cliff Haryanto (right) and Baby Matthew (bottom)
(Photo: Mary Beth Aberlin)

It began around 5:30 a.m., in the garage of a difficult-to-reach three-story building abutting the Long Island Expressway in the Middle Village neighborhood of Queens.

Niketut Koriastuti thought she’d been dreaming when she heard loud noises next door. Realizing that something was terribly wrong, she woke her husband, Cliff Haryanto, who opened the door of their second-floor apartment onto a hallway filled with billowing smoke. The apartment had no fires escape, fire alarms or extinguishers, and with no other way out, the couple decided to evacuate through a window. Cliff hung down from the window’s edge and yelled for his wife to pass him two-year-old Matthew. Clinging to the ledge by one arm, Cliff cradled Matthew in the other until he was able to safely drop him down to a neighbor waiting below. Then Cliff jumped, injuring both arms.

Niketut reports feeling panicked, “I forgot my glasses. There was no time. I couldn’t see anything—it was dark and there was so much smoke.” Cliff told her to jump to him so he could break her fall. But in the dark she missed him and sprained her ankle.

The family was taken for treatment to North Shore Hospital. It was there that two Red Cross responders came to offer them assistance. The responders took the family back to the fire scene to retrieve documents and then to a hotel where Red Cross had arranged temporary housing for them. Cliff and Niketut had never dealt with the Red Cross and were surprised to see them at the hospital.“We got very, very much help from the Red Cross,” says Niketut.

Kartika and Evan Langston (Photo: Mary Beth Aberlin)

Evan Langston and his wife, Kartika, lived one floor above Cliff and Niketut. Evan woke up because he smelled smoke. “I sat up in bed and I was, like ‘Babe, get up! There’s a fire.’” He opened the apartment door, saw smoke and slammed the door shut. “It all happened so fast,” says Evan. “I ran around the apartment and tripped and cut my foot. When I came back my wife was trying to jump out the window. Her feet were out the window and she was sitting there ready to jump. I yelled, ‘Tika, what are you doing? You can’t jump.’ We live on the third floor; she could get really hurt.

“So I grabbed her around her stomach and I pulled her back in.” Evan ripped a blanket off the bed and threw it in the shower to wet it. He put the wet blanket over their heads and they slowly descended the pitch-black, smoke-filled stairway to the building’s entrance. Seconds later, the stairwell burst into flames.

Evan’s stepfather had told the couple that the Red Cross could help them, and a social worker at the hospital to which they were taken called the Chapter for assistance. After finding them in the hospital, Red Cross workers took the couple back to the destroyed building to pick up essential documents, arranged for temporary housing for them, and gave them an emergency stipend to buy food and clothing. They also arranged for medication and a replacement machine to treat Evan’s asthma—his had melted in the fire.

This was not the first time Evan’s family had been involved with the Red Cross. His brother, Jonathan, an artist in Portland, Oregon, and a friend used first aid skills learned at the Red Cross to help a man who was seriously injured while mountain biking in the woods in Oregon. They were honored for helping to save the man’s life at a Red Cross “Breakfast of Champions” held in March 2009.



For their parts, Evan and Kartika are grateful for the assistance they received. Evan says, “Thank you, Red Cross, for all your help. You really saved us.” To which Kartika adds, “Without the Red Cross we would have had no place to go.”