For the week of August 27 - September 2, 2003

Red Cross seeks
return to the black

Idahoans urged to fund scaled-back organization

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By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

In a brief visit to the Wood River Valley last weekend, the president of the American Red Cross said the organization is responding effectively to scores of disasters every day, despite a precipitous decline in funding that has lingered after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

MARSHA EVANS. Photo by Ken Ockler

Marsha Evans, who was hired as president and chief executive officer of the Red Cross in August 2002, urged Idahoans to help replenish the organization’s state and national coffers, as well as its blood banks.

"We’re at about a two-day blood supply, dangerously low for this country," Evans said, addressing an audience of 30 Wood River Valley residents at a private residence in Gimlet subdivision, south of Ketchum.

Evans said a spate of national disasters last year throughout the nation "devastated" the Red Cross’s National Disaster Relief Fund, a reserve account that is used to pay for responses to large-scale disasters, such as Western wildfires and East Coast hurricanes.

Evans and other senior Red Cross officials at the event said the organization has seen funding from the public sector decrease nationwide in recent years but has not adjusted its commitment to providing disaster relief, supplies of blood, and training in first aid, CPR and disaster response.

"We’re preparing for disasters and responding to disasters," Evans said.

Evans stressed that the nonprofit American Red Cross—which is a separate organization from the International Red Cross—does not receive federal funding, despite a mandate from Congress that it must provide disaster relief. "We get little or no federal money," she said.

The American Red Cross of Greater Idaho, based in Boise, has not been immune to the nationwide lull in charity donations the last two years.

Larry Allen, major gifts director, said the Idaho Red Cross is operating with a $530,000 deficit, prompting the closure of its office in Pocatello. In addition, the Idaho Red Cross has reduced its full-time staff from 32 to 19.

Allen said the Idaho Red Cross received $8 million in charitable donations after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, but was obligated eventually to issue the money to victims of the events. "People, after doing that, didn’t give again for a whole year," he said.

Dave Fotsch, public affairs officer for Idaho Red Cross, said the lack of funding has come in part from misconceptions about the American Red Cross. "We’re taken for granted a lot," he said. "And people don’t always realize we’re not funded by the government."

Fotsch noted that the American Red Cross has only $1 million in its disaster reserve fund. "That’s not going to cut it," he said.

Despite the recent lack of funding, Idaho Red Cross officials said Saturday that the organization has not cut its services. "None of our services have been affected," Allen said. "We’ve had to consolidate on the business side."

Fotsch said the Idaho Red Cross responded to 283 disasters in the state last year, assisting more than a thousand victims. He noted that Idaho disasters are almost exclusively residential fires.

Pat Lindholm, director of the Idaho Red Cross South Central District Office in Twin Falls, said district volunteers from July 2002 through June 2003 provided assistance to more than 150 victims of 56 fires and other incidents in the region—including the Wood River Valley.

Red Cross assistance to fire victims typically comes within two hours of the report of the event, ensuring victims have appropriate shelter, clothing and food.

Evans said she has commenced a campaign to convince the federal government that the American Red Cross is deserving of limited taxpayer funding. She said she is working with members of Congress to enact legislation that would reimburse the Red Cross for costs incurred in responding to offshore disasters, such as typhoons in distant U.S. territories.

"We would be grateful for some government support," she said, noting that she believes it is appropriate for charitable donations to be the primary funding source for disasters in the continental U.S.

Above all, Evans said she wants citizens to understand the importance of Red Cross programs. "Many people have no idea about the pervasiveness of the Red Cross," she said. "We’re kind of the insurance policy for the country."

 

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