American Red Cross Northern Minnesota Region - Annual Report FY13 | Page 6

Serving the Military, Their Families and Veterans The Red Cross gives support to active-duty military members, National Guard and Reserve members, veterans and their families. We provide pre-deployment briefings, called “Get to Know Us Before You Need Us,” and connect families with needed resources when their loved ones are deployed. Deployed service members also count on us to deliver emergency messages, such as notification of an illness or death in the family. Military families rely on these verified communications, which help commanders decide when to grant leave. We also provide support for the sick and wounded at military and veterans hospitals and assistance in obtaining emergency financial support. During fiscal year 2013, the Northern Minnesota Region: • Briefed 3,543 families through the “Get to Know Us Before You Need Us” program • Provided 2,103 services to military members and their families, including emergency communications • Collected and distributed thousands of peices of Holiday Mail for Heroes Gardening with Veterans Red Cross worker Mike Booth visits with veteran Harold Palm at the Minnesota Veterans Home garden in Minneapolis. Our Service to the Armed Forces (SAF) program donated the ergonomic gardening supplies as part of our direct patient services. “The veterans and their families appreciate the gardens as a place to get out and enjoy nature,” says Shirlee Peterson, Director of Recreation Therapy at the Veterans Home. “It’s therapeutic for them to get fresh air, dig in the dirt and feel the sun on a nice day.” Blood—Making Sure It’s Available Region, which processes, tests and safeguards blood collected from donors in our local communities and collects more than 250,000 units of lifesaving blood and provides blood products to 1 1 local hospitals. The need is constant - every day in our country 1 approximately 44,000 units of blood are required in hospitals and emergency treatment facilities for patients with cancer and other diseases, for organ transplant recipients and to help save the lives of accident victims.