Details on Red Cross Volunteering

One of the advantages of being marginally employed is that we sometimes have days, like today, off from work. We were going to do something important with our day off, like take out the trash and check our e-mail, but then we kept reading the awful hurricane news. We got all worked up and decided to go do some volunteer work.

Note that the last time we did some volunteer work that didn't involve free tickets to something, we were in high school and really desperate to get into a good university.

In any case, we wound up at the Red Cross in South Austin testing cell phones and packing them up so they can be sent out to Louisiana. Other people on the warehouse floor were putting together radios, testing laptops and otherwise contributing to the technological aspect of the rescue effort.

If, like us, you have more time than money, we would like to suggest giving some of your time away. The Red Cross is going to be open from 8 a.m. - 7 p.m. for the disaster relief effort, and is asking that people commit to a shift of either 8 a.m. to noon, or 1 - 5 p.m. They can really use people with good technical knowledge. We can attest that this isn't brain surgery, so if you have a good understanding of how to operate your laptop, cell phone and stereo, you're probably set.

The organization normally requires volunteers to complete a 4-hour class on disaster relief, but at the South Austin warehouse you can help with technical things, like the mountains of cell phones, computers and radios, without disaster training. If you'd prefer to help by answering phones or performing data entry, that is a possibility, but you will likely need to complete the training class.

UPDATE: The Red Cross is now referring everyone to American Red Cross of Central Texas at 2218 Pershing rather than sending people directly to the South Austin warehouse. Call (512) 928-4271 for more information.