By Eilene E. Guy, American Red Cross volunteer

Clara Barton was born on Dec. 25, 1821, 202 years ago today. What a gift she turned out to be!

Clara was a trailblazer throughout her life, but her most impactful legacy is the organization she founded in 1881, the American Red Cross.

Although she never married or had children, her “baby” has moved millions of people to give their time and talents to help even more millions of people prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies.

One of the things I admire about Clara was her ability to adapt. That “semper Gumby” (forever flexible) ethos guides the organization to this day.

In 1882, Clara sent her right-hand man, Julian Hubbell, to assess damage from floods along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and provide relief. Clara managed fundraising, including $3,000 from the German Red Cross.

The flood wasn’t a large-scale disaster, but it did reveal the need for preparedness. Up to that time, Clara had run the Red Cross as a centralized operation, dispatching funds and relief management after emergencies.

Recognizing the need to localize, Clara had Hubbell work with mayors and business owners in Louisville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis to start local chapters, the first of what is now a national network of some 230 chapters recruiting volunteers and financial support.

Within a few decades, Red Cross chapters were popping up all over northern Ohio. In
fact, one of the most influential early supporters of the fledgling Red Cross was
Cleveland-born Mable Boardman, who traveled the country promoting volunteerism.

Across the decades, the Red Cross has followed Clara’s lead, adding programs to meet vital needs across a wide scope of American life:

• Collecting nearly 40% of the blood needed to sustain trauma victims, support surgery patients and treat people with acute conditions from cancer to sickle cell disease.
• Training volunteers to help victims of natural and manmade disasters with shelter, food, emergency medical and emotional support as well as guidance to plan their recovery.
• Teaching lifesaving skills ranging from first aid and CPR to swimming and lifeguarding, to disaster preparation for children and adults. This year, the Red Cross launched a new online course, “Until Help Arrives,” to train bystanders to respond to opioid overdoses, severe bleeding, cardiac arrest and choking emergencies.
• Installing millions of free smoke alarms in homes across the country to prevent home fire injuries and deaths.
• Supporting our men and women in the military, and their families, with pre- and post-deployment preparedness, and morale and wellness support stateside and overseas. This year, Red Cross volunteers delivered emergency messages connecting more than 87,000 service members with their loved ones in times of family need.
• Serving as a vehicle for Americans’ desire to contribute to disaster prevention and response around the world. This year, the American Red Cross helped support the international response to such disasters as earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, drought and hunger crises in Africa and flooding in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, the organization is taking steps to minimize its environmental impact by shifting to more hybrid and electric vehicles, renewable energy sources and eco-friendly supplies.

Clara Barton recognized the importance of adapting to emerging needs. As such, I see her as one of the most consequential women in American history. She set the template for humanitarian service: During 2022, more than 275,000 people in America stepped up to volunteer.

And she established an organization that continues – more than 133 years later – to adjust to society’s new needs: More than half a million people downloaded Red Cross disaster preparedness apps on their phones during 2022.

If you’d like to learn more about the many ways Red Cross volunteers and donors live out Clara’s vision, visit redcross.org or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on X at @RedCross.

Edited by Glenda Bogar, Red Cross volunteer

Posted by Ryan Lang, Red Cross board member and volunteer