By Ryan Gaul

The Disaster Cycle Services (DCS) Team would like to congratulate a few of its volunteers for their ongoing dedication and accomplishments. These individuals exemplify one or more of the Red Cross’s 5 C’s: Compassionate, Collaborative, Creative, Credible and Committed. Each month, DCS will recognize volunteers who are members of one of their specialized teams.

For the month of January, DCS recognized volunteers who are members of the Mass Care Teams: Sheltering, Feeding, Distribution of Emergency Supplies, and Reunification. Hats off to the following volunteers:

Jayne Cabnet is Committed

Jayne serves as the Regional Mass Care reunification lead in addition to roles as an amateur radio operator, caseworker, Disaster Action Team (DAT) member, government liaison, and logistics member, to name a few. In 2022, Jayne committed to serving as a virtually deployed reunification volunteer to support disaster survivors in California, Kentucky, Florida, and Pittsburgh. Jayne brought back lessons learned during these deployments to better support SEPA region and volunteers under her leadership. During this time, she was promoted to be a Mass Care Reunification Supervisor. Jayne was ready to lead our reunification teams for a Philadelphia Phillies and/or Union victory parade in 2022… here’s to putting that plan into place this week for the Eagles!

Ed Robold is Compassionate

Ed is compassionate with a PASSION. His leadership as a regional sheltering manager, DAT supervisor and as a Home Fire Campaign lead shows his desire and abilities to support the full cycle of Disaster Cycle Services. Ed’s return as regional sheltering manager in 2022 was timely, as he led the management of our shelters in response to the Conshohocken Avenue multi-family fire and the Lindley Street partial building collapse. During the Conshohocken Avenue shelter with only one client, Ed took advantage of the response to train over a dozen volunteers in sheltering paperwork and procedures, which proved prescient as we moved into a larger Lindley Street sheltering response less than one month later. Ed has taken many lessons learned from these operations to plan for future responses, including developing shelter manager kits for each of our response vehicles and supply staging areas. 

Bob Schmidt is Credible

Bob speaks, and others listen. As a veteran DAT responder and shelter manager, Bob is a consummate sounding board for newer and seasoned volunteers alike. Bob took this credibility to Delaware County Office of Emergency Management in Spring 2022 to teach a cadre of their staff and volunteers on Sheltering Fundamentals. He did such a good job, Delaware County OEM already booked him again for a class this spring. Bob also supported his Red Cross team during a Shelter Fundamentals course and interactive workshop in September, where he co-led new and more seasoned volunteers alike – many of whom we saw later in the fall in our Philadelphia shelters and on deployment. Bob reprised this role by co-teaching a Virtual Shelter Fundamentals course for Philadelphia OEM to support their workforce serving the migrant busing shelter operation in the city. 

Debbie Tevlin is Creative

Debbie is full of leadership and guidance, but it is her consistent iterative ability and pausing to ask, ‘what do you think about …?’  that drives her ability create a response and recovery plan that best supports our clients and workforce. Debbie co-led the Red Cross Shelter Fundamentals course with Bob Schmidt in September, and then the Virtual Shelter Fundamentals course in support of Philadelphia OEM this past December. Debbie made sure to deliver the material on the page, then expanded to include important lessons learned and guidance for any new shelter worker. This guidance extended to several overnight and daytime shifts that Debbie took to support our shelter operations in Philadelphia last fall. Additionally, she deployed to Florida to support feeding operations for disaster survivors in the wake of Hurricane Ian. As to why she deployed in this GAP, Debbie said that she wanted to deploy in a new role – it didn’t take long for her be field promoted to feeding supervisor. 

Janice Thomas is Collaborative

Janice stepped back from her regional Mass Care lead role in 2022 to help round out the leadership team. Staying on as regional feeding lead, Janice helped to advance two other volunteers into Mass Care lead roles and began building a training plan to support the next generation of leaders. She collaborated with the national Red Cross team and Southern Baptists to lead a highly successful Kitchen Site Management course in June at West Chester University (to be reprised June 2023). Janice was also a driving force in the September Shelter Fundamentals course (to be reprised Spring 2023) and had her Feeding team serve what I heard was the best meal since COVID during the DAT exercise in June. Janice has built a strong relationship with The Salvation Army as our main feeding partner in Philadelphia, which includes a more proactive loading and response plan for our emergency response vehicles (ERV) deployments in the region. Janice has had her presence felt on many Mass Care responses and trainings big and smaller in 2022; she even led the development of a shelter training partnership with The Garage, a nonprofit in Avondale, for them to store supplies and stand up a shelter to support their neighbors in a frequently flooded adjacent apartment complex, allowing them to be the first responders before the Red Cross can arrive. Janice is a listener, leader and collaborator who works to support our community and team members to better respond and recover from disaster. 

Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published in the February 2023 issue of The Volunteer Voice.