Hi, Sean.  This is Maura from the Red Cross.  I think we are very
effective.  We collect, process and distribute more than 40 percent of
the nation's blood supply.  Our local chapters, which are funded by
their own communities and rely primarily on volunteers, together
respond to more than 70,000 disasters every year.  Most of those
disasters are home fires.  The Red Cross makes sure people have a
place to sleep, food to eat and clothes to wear.  Chapters also teach
millions of people every year in first aid and CPR, swimming and water
safety, lifeguarding, disaster preparedness and more.  And if you are
a military family with a loved one serving far from home, the Red
Cross is where you go to get word to that person about a family
emergency.

Last week, the Red Cross sheltered people in the Pacific Northwest
after strong winds and mudslides destroyed homes and knocked out roads
and power and also set up a family center for the families affected by
the mall shootings in Omaha.  They sheltered people in Great Neck, NY,
after a car crashed into an apartment building and helped people when
a Greyhound bus spun out of control on a snowy interstate.  In Africa,
we learned, measles deaths have dropped by a staggering 91 percent
because of an American Red Cross led vaccination program.  And we
helped negotiate a historic agreement allowing five Red Crescent
ambulances to operate in East Jerusalem.  This week, we're helping
people affected by the ice storms and a bunch of pretty serious
multifamily fires around the country.

I hope you are getting the idea:  the Red Cross is a great link
between people who want to help and people who need that help.  You
can go to our Website at redcross.org and view our annual report and
read much more.  There's also tons of good info on keeping yourself
safe in a disaster.