Red Cross and Salvation Army need more Vols

As Queens politicians lauded Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers last week for their response to the 10-day blackout in Western Queens in July, both agencies called for more volunteers and assistance.
The Red Cross Chapter of Greater New York wants to double its number of volunteers in the area to prepare for natural disasters, blackouts, fires, and other emergencies. Currently the Red Cross has 3,500 adult and 1,500 youth volunteers and hopes to increase their ranks to 10,000.
The Salvation Army, which has a location in Astoria at 34-02 Steinway Street, also asked for help from local Queens residents.
&#8220We really need a minimum of 10,000 volunteers,” said Terry Bischoff, the CEO of the Red Cross in the Greater New York area, which also serves Orange, Sullivan, Putnam and Rockland counties of New York as well as the five boroughs.
&#8220People don't know what these organizations do until they need them,” Congressmember Joseph Crowley said during the press conference. &#8220This power outage proves how vitally important the Red Cross is to this city.”
Carlos Giron, a Woodside resident who lost power for 10 days during the blackout, praised the agencies for doling out food and supplies.
&#8220Thank you Red Cross for helping us in our time of need,” he said. &#8220All of our residents are so grateful.”
After several days of receiving barely any aid, Giron had called local politicians to ask for assistance for other residents living in the Renaissance Co-op., which is located at 38-05 65th Street in Woodside. Many of residents are elderly, Giron said, explaining why he was so grateful that the building was given a generator.
Giron, along with his wife and 13-year-old son, also picked up hot meals from the corner of 65th Street and 37th Avenue, one of the eight Red Cross distribution locations in Queens where hot food, water, ice, and even baby formula were made available.
Between Queens and the Bronx - where several thousand residents were also without power - the Red Cross served nearly 100,000 meals and gave out about 125,000 bottles of water. The effort cost the agency $537,983.
State Senator John Sabini said that the agencies' efforts could only be described as &#8220heroic.”
Also on hand to praise the Red Cross and Salvation Army's work were Councilmember Eric Gioia, Assemblymembers Ivan Lafayette and Michael Gianaris, the latter of whom was without power in his home and district office for seven days.
&#8220Con Edison thinks that they are doing their job not by preventing situations like this but by waiting and pasting things back together … it's really a tragedy,” Lafayette said, after thanking the agencies.