Volunteers Track Feeding Trucks for Latest Locations

In the days after Superstorm Sandy, the American Red Cross has activated a process that tracks the location of their feeding trucks so residents in hard-hit neighborhoods in New York city, parts of New Jersey and parts of West Virginia know where to get the food they need.

A cadre of Red Cross volunteers is making sure the latest information about Red Cross emergency response vehicles – mobile feeding trucks - is easily accessible and available for those in need.

Volunteers Gary Brandel (left) of Long Island and Holly Ann Woloszyn (right) from the Southwestern New York Chapter at work providing client services at the Red Cross shelter in Deer Park, Long Island.

Each hour, dedicated volunteers are individually calling response vehicles to verify their location as they drive through impacted New York and New Jersey communities distributing food and water. The same is done for vehicles in West Virginia hard-hit by snow.

The information they gather is then delivered, in a standardized format, to a centrally-located email box. From this box, one volunteer – a virtual human app – copies and pastes the locations in a blog post featured in the Red Cross Disaster Online Newsroom.

In the wake of the storm, the Red Cross relief operation is growing each day in order to provide the necessary food, shelter, supplies and comfort to more and more people affected by Superstorm Sandy. The Red Cross also has fixed feeding sites in New York and New Jersey.

While there are formal Red Cross feeding trucks in all the boroughs of New York City, including Staten Island, there are also rental cars, trucks and other vehicles distributing supplies and food in neighborhoods.

The response to Sandy is large and very costly and is likely to be the biggest in Red Cross history in the past five years. To date, the Red Cross has helped people in ten states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico affected by Sandy.

To donate, visit www.redcross.org, call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. People can also use the “donate” feature on the free Red Cross Apps to support the Red Cross relief response.

Your gift enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, emotional support and other assistance to those affected.