Johnny Kim
1140 and counting. This is a special number for both Anshu and me. The number of people we have reached out to while working with the American Red Cross doing our hurricane preparedness presentations. It feels incredible that we have managed to reach out to so many people in the past three weeks, and this accomplishment is definitely pushing me to work harder. However, numbers or statistics alone cannot fathom to describe my experience here in New Orleans.
The American Red Cross. In the beginning, I didn't know what to expect. I read the brief descriptions that the DukeEngage packet had about this community partner, and our supervisor, Maureen, gave us a short orientation on what work to expect during our phone interview. But from Day 1, I knew it was going to be an amazing summer. Thomas, the chief of Disaster Action Team (DAT), came by the room during our orientation and said "Do y'all wanna go check out the fire that just happened?" Without a moment of hesitation, I accepted the offer. I was both nervous and excited on our drive to the fire location. I've never in my life have experienced or witnessed any kind of fire, so the opportunity to witness one, minutes after the firemen put out the fire, was such a novel experience. The scene of accident was somewhat familiar as I have been working as an EMT back at Duke - multiple firetrucks and police cars with their lights still on. However, the difference was the smell and the smoke. Thomas offered me to follow him inside the house to access the damage of the household. Then, we met with the victim to talk to him about how the Red Cross can help him with monetary support for food, clothing and hotel. Thomas's ability to provide emotional support for the victim left a lasting impression on me.
The American Red Cross. In the beginning, I didn't know what to expect. I read the brief descriptions that the DukeEngage packet had about this community partner, and our supervisor, Maureen, gave us a short orientation on what work to expect during our phone interview. But from Day 1, I knew it was going to be an amazing summer. Thomas, the chief of Disaster Action Team (DAT), came by the room during our orientation and said "Do y'all wanna go check out the fire that just happened?" Without a moment of hesitation, I accepted the offer. I was both nervous and excited on our drive to the fire location. I've never in my life have experienced or witnessed any kind of fire, so the opportunity to witness one, minutes after the firemen put out the fire, was such a novel experience. The scene of accident was somewhat familiar as I have been working as an EMT back at Duke - multiple firetrucks and police cars with their lights still on. However, the difference was the smell and the smoke. Thomas offered me to follow him inside the house to access the damage of the household. Then, we met with the victim to talk to him about how the Red Cross can help him with monetary support for food, clothing and hotel. Thomas's ability to provide emotional support for the victim left a lasting impression on me.
The majority of our work with the Red Cross consists of giving disaster preparedness presentations. We mainly target two groups of people: young children and seniors. For the seniors, we visit various senior homes and do a "Go-Kit" presentation. We talk about how to prepare for the hurricane season and what to do during the hurricane. In the beginning, I didn't feel completely comfortable giving these presentations. I was a newcomer in this city with little or no real background knowledge about hurricanes, and here I was going around to different communities about hurricane preparedness to people who have lived through Hurricane Katrina and other more recent hurricanes. This sense of incompetency forced me to research deeper into the subject, paying attention during my training, talking to my supervisors, reading up on the material and listening to other experts talk about the issue at our talks that we cohost. After a week or two, I feel much more comfortable giving the presentations and many people personally thanked us after the presentation for providing them with useful information. For the children, we usually go to various summer camps around the area to give the "Pillowcase Project" presentation which consists of talking about fire safety and hurricane preparedness and we end with giving everyone a pillowcase for them to decorate with things that they would take during an evacuation. I have always enjoyed working with children, although sometimes very tiring. Working with children from different summer camps in all parts of New Orleans, I witnessed firsthand the presence of large socioeconomic gap that are causing many of the issues that NOLA is facing today. The system seemed so unfair that some kids were privileged to study in safe and comfortable environment while some kids were in camps with no A/C, broken windows and crowded environment especially since the kids were really the same at heart no matter which background they came from.
Red Cross also provided us with unique opportunity to go to various interesting events. This past Friday, Anshu and I signed up to table at the St. Tammany Crab Festival. Although it took us some trouble finding the place in the North Shore, we had a great time meeting new volunteers of Red Cross, eating interesting food (my first alligator) and just experiencing the uplifting atmosphere of a festival.
My experience so far feels quite interesting. When I am working, it feels like I've been here for months although it's only been three weeks; however, I look at my calendar and realize that the program is almost halfway over. Either way, my experience in the Big Easy has been so amazing, and I am definitely looking forward to making the most out of it in the next five weeks of my DukeEngage experience.