Seneca Woman Aided in Hurricane Harvey Recovery

| September 20, 2017

SENECA, Pa. (EYT) — A Seneca woman has been volunteering for the western Pennsylvania Red Cross, and it has led her to many extraordinary experiences.

Carol Holland was working in a community health facility in Oil City more than 30 years ago when she met a male nurse who was volunteering for the Red Cross.

“He commented about how great they were, and it was always something that stuck with me,” Holland said.

Eighteen years ago, Holland took the plunge and signed up to offer her considerable skills and time to Red Cross.

Among others, Holland has helped following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and now in three hurricanes after spending two weeks in the Houston area following Hurricane Harvey.

Holland is a licensed psychologist who retired three years ago from Slippery Rock University after heading its Student Counseling Center.

“I’m very proud that I can help,” Holland said. “I’ve been blessed in my life, and I feel good to be able to do it.”

Holland worked in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston where more than 10,000 displaced citizens stayed while waiting to go home.

“It was challenging being in a part of the country I hadn’t been before,” Holland said.

Holland worked with people to determine if they had any mental health needs.

“I was reassuring them, deescalating, helping them better manage their anxiety, and providing them with whatever information I actually had.”

“I’m always amazed at how quickly the Red Cross can build a multi-million dollar structure in such a short time to help people in so many different ways,” Holland said.

Holland said she met people from every state, except Alaska.

“There were people there volunteering who had expertise in IT, mental health, working to help people find places to live, so many different areas of expertise.”

Holland also gives of her time calling family members of military service members for death and illness notifications.

“We check to see if there’s anything they need, to offer condolences, to see if they got home,” Holland said. “I don’t take lightly our armed service members commitment and our freedoms, so it’s a way to be connected to the community.”

Holland received training through Red Cross at what is called a “sheltering boot camp.”

Dan Tobin, a western Pa. Red Cross representative, said nearly 300 people in northwestern Pa. have signed up to take the classes.

More than a dozen are working in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma and many are still working in Texas.

Those that take the class learn how to set up, operate and tear down the shelter when the work is done. The boot camps prepare volunteers for what they will do when they need to do it.

Holland roomed with a nurse from Deep Creek, Md., and she ran into a man whom she had worked with in Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

“They are such warm, kind-hearted people. Getting to work such people and helping others is very gratifying,” Holland said. “Anyone who is interested in volunteering in any way they can, or in donating in any way they can because I’ve seen the need, and it will be for a long time with (hurricanes) in the Virgin Islands.”

For more information, go to redcrosswpa.blogspot.com.


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