By Jim McIntyre, American Red Cross volunteer

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”    

That sentiment of Mahatma Ghandi is fitting recognition for World Humanitarian Day, celebrated each year on August 19. American Red Cross volunteers are repeatedly in the service of others. 

From organizing drives to collect lifesaving blood to assisting families who have been chased from their homes by fire, volunteers are the lifeblood of the Red Cross – the world’s premier humanitarian organization.   

I have witnessed the kindness and compassion of countless Red Cross volunteers in the past ten years, and not only in the Northern Ohio Region. Thousands of Red Cross volunteers deploy to areas across the country after disaster strikes, to help provide shelter, meals, and emotional support to people during their darkest hours. 

In 2016, in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew in North Carolina, I attended a birthday party arranged by Red Cross volunteers for a child whose family was taking refuge in a shelter. A year later, I accompanied Red Cross volunteers in Texas who were bringing warm meals and drinking water to residents at their homes following the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey. I witnessed Red Cross spiritual care volunteers comfort folks following a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio in 2019. In 2022, I watched Red Cross volunteers maneuver a disaster response truck through the rubble created by Hurricane Ian at Ft. Myers Beach to bring residents help.  And two years ago, I saw Red Cross volunteers effectively collaborate with aid workers from several other agencies to help residents of Lahaina, Maui in the aftermath of deadly wildfires. 

True humanitarians. 

“Everyone can be a humanitarian. All it takes is one act to help someone else.” — Valerie Amos, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. 

If you have an interest in obtaining the skills needed to help people affected by large disasters across the country, visit the Red Cross website to learn more.  And if helping neighbors closer to home appeals to your humanitarianism, visit this page.  

It’s never to late to become a humanitarian. Author C.S. Lewis once said, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”