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 Omar Ruiz is always looking for leaders. “The big thing we need is leadership, people who want to take on leadership roles,” said Ruiz, supervisor for the American Red Cross Jefferson County Service Center, 3880 Jeffco Blvd., in Arnold.
He needs volunteers who are willing to work on committees, act as mentors to other volunteers, and go out into the community to share health and safety and disaster preparedness information.
In addition, the Red Cross needs people to serve on its national and local disaster response teams, he said.
Some might feel that they do not have the time to help out or the skills the Red Cross is looking for, but Ruiz said, even those who can only spare an hour now and then make a big contribution.
“The commitment is yours to make what you want out of it. We have some volunteers who come in once a month and some who come in several times a week. If somebody wanted to be here every day, that would be great, but realistically it could be an hour,” Ruiz said.
In addition, jobs abound within the organization for people with a variety of skills and abilities and training is provided to volunteers, he said.
“We are going to provide the training,” Ruiz said. “We will assist in getting them on track with whatever they would like to do. We are not going to send you out by yourself on a blind mission.”
When people inquire about volunteering, Red Cross officials ask them to fill out an application and submit to a background check.
Then they are interviewed to determine what skills they bring, their areas of interest, the amount of time they have available and whether they would like to work in the field or remain behind the scenes.
For more information on volunteering, call 636.464.9150 or visit the Jefferson County Service Center. The site is open from 8 a.m. 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Information also is available by logging onto www.redcrossstl.org.
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