Giving those in need “a hug, a smile, and some hope”

By Jim McIntyre, Regional Communications Director

Monica Bunner describes herself as “something of an adrenaline junkie.”

That’s a reasonable explanation for her willingness to go anywhere the American Red Cross is needed following a disaster. She said she’s not a “sit at the desk type of gal,” but needs to be physically involved.

Monica’s volunteer career with the Red Cross began in 2017. She was watching Hurricane Harvey unfold and felt she had to do something. She deployed to Houston to help, but not with the Red Cross. Not that time.

“A cause I already supported also needed help,” she said. That cause was Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. She was stationed at NRG Center, taking care of pets when she saw Red Cross workers helping people who needed shelter, and thought, “If I’m not doing the animals, maybe I can do the people thing.”

When she returned to Northeast Ohio, Monica began training to become a Red Cross disaster responder. She has helped people following home fires, installed smoke alarms, and assisted at fundraising events. And she began to deploy to help people who needed shelter following major disasters, such as flooding in southern Ohio, Hurricane Ian in Florida, and the devastating Maui wildfires in Hawaii.

“I always wanted to make a difference, to work with communities, to give people some direction, a hug and a smile, and some hope.”

Monica has continued training to expand her skills, and now works primarily with community engagement and partnerships, helping the Red Cross connect with other resources to assist people who have been impacted by disasters. She also helps reunite families who are separated during disasters, and she helped establish Red Cross disaster communications in Puerto Rico.

Fluent in Spanish, Monica was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and emigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was a child. She worked at NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, helping recruit and train women in non-traditional fields like science and engineering, and was on the team that recruited the first female U. S. astronauts.

Following her NASA career, Monica opened a real estate brokerage and a home rehabilitation business, noting how she was one of the first “female flippers.” And she has traveled to El Salvador with a church group to help build homes there.

Monica plans to continue connecting with and helping people in need through the Red Cross for the immediate future but admits the time will come to slow her frenetic pace. “This work is very physically, mentally and spiritually demanding,” she said. But it’s also rewarding. “I love the feeling of just connecting with people,” she said.

The Red Cross relies on more than 265,000 volunteers like Monica Bunner to fulfil its mission, and if you’d like to learn more, visit redcross.org/volunteer.

Posted by Ryan Lang, American Red Cross board member and volunteer