Gonna be doing casework for 7 counties....

The regional chapter of the Red Cross I volunteer with has been added 18 or so more counties to their district so our local office is being set up to do the casework for 7 of those counties. I am so excited cause I have wanted to do casework for a long time and here's my opportunity.

Today there were three of us doing the training. Hopefully there will be several more added so we can cover the area without spreading ourselves too thin.

We will do the follow up after the DAT team has went out at the time of the disaster and met with the client.

Brian was our instructor and he's a great person to do the training!

We will then come along behind the DAT team and make sure the clients have had their initial needs met and make sure there is nothing else we can help them with before we close out the case. We will be making referrals for places that can help with those things out of our area. So part of our work will be getting to know these 7 counties and what is available in each of them to use as referrals. Places we can direct clients to for additional food, clothing, household items, medical needs, eyeglass replacement. Things like that. Doesn't it sound exciting!! I love helping people and this will be a great opportunity for me to do that. I love volunteering with the American Red Cross!

So, before setting up our new office, we had to move out the old. Life is like that. The old needs to go many times before a new work can begin.

This was a very old, antique desk. And very HEAVY!! We're actually faking it! Turned it up on end and put it on those little slider thingy's and with BRIAN'S help, slid it right out the door. The new desks had to be brought up from the basement. Sounds like a lot of work but our office is located in a bank building and there is an elevator available. Do you know how interesting it can be to move a desk and get it in an elevator with two people without incident? Unfortunately, I backed my butt up against the little red button and set off the elevator alarm. Nothing like making a grand entrance!

Brian and Valerie are checking out the computer wiring that was left from the previous occupants. By the way, we get two laptops for our use. Won't that be great?

What a good day this was! Accomplished a lot, had fun doing it and now ready to get down to business. We take over officially on Saturday Aug. 1. And we're excited!!!