The Red Cross Club kicks off their first year! Teaming up with the American Red Cross organization, our fellow juniors－Nidhi Shanmugam, Ishan Patel, Jasmine Roman-Rivera, and Nicole Ignacio－ have started the Red Cross Club to teach Warren students and spread awareness. “Red Cross Clubs empower you with knowledge and life-saving skills in order to help prepare your school and community to respond to emergencies.” With a different topic each month, the club hopes to spread knowledge about certain topics such as: natural disasters, mental health, school shootings, veteran gratitude, and CPR training－this month being natural disasters. The Red Cross Club has prepared simulations, activities, and volunteer opportunities for Warren students and plans to meet every other Wednesday!

I got the opportunity to speak with one of the officers, Nidhi Shanmugam, to discuss how the club came about, the future of the club, and reactions to the club meetings so far. 

When asked about how the club started she answered, “Me and a couple friends got together and it was late into sophomore year when we decided to start this. It was at a point where we just go to school and do homework and we wanted to do something more. It was definitely at a time where everything happened with the school shootings. I had a lot of friends that mentally felt like school wasn’t the best environment and I wanted a club that was a safe environment to teach students what to do in those situations.” 

How did you find out about the program? “I was introduced by a friend and they told me to check this website called the ‘Red Cross’. Red Cross is a big organization that we’ve all heard of in some sense but I personally didn’t know you could start a club through them and I thought that was really nice. They could give a lot of advice and guidance and they are very much focused on the ideals of helping people and if we partnered with them we are able to get our message out better.”

What is the Red Cross club about? “I know the name is a little ambiguous when you first hear it but, what we do is, we have specialized months where we cover different topics about different epidemics and problems in the world and learn what to do in those situations. At the end, we like to do a project to tie into the topic and help out the Warren community. We try to prepare for the real world. Also, we have games and we try to make it fun and be interactive after a long day at school!” 

What are your thoughts/reactions about the club turnout so far? “We were very much surprised! Like I said before, the name is kinda ambiguous, and it’s the first time we’re starting this club. We were like, ‘I don’t know how it’s gonna be’ or like ‘if 5 people come that’ll be great.’ We definitely focused on getting our name out there and marketing, almost. We had posters up the week before, like big posters, and we told a lot of friends about it and asked them to spread the word. We also did announcements about it. But to see so many people wanna come out for such a thing and do some community service, to have fun and learn about certain situations, was really heartwarming! Because in the beginning we were like, ‘who do you think is gonna come to a club where you’re gonna be learning?’ But to see so many people who were interested was really nice!” 

Definitely looking forward to future Red Cross club meetings! If you are interested, Red Cross club meets every other Wednesday from 3:20-4:00 at the O’Plaine campus!

Source(s):

http://redcrossyouth.org/college-resources/red-cross-club-toolkits-2/