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The American Red Cross of Northeast Tennessee is hosting a Disaster Action Team Training day on March 25.

The training will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Morristown Fire Department on 625 South Jackson Street.

Volunteers will train on how to respond to local disasters such as home fires.

“The volunteers will be trained on how to respond to disaster calls and how to assist with families who have lost their homes and belongings to a fire,” said Dawn Day, Red Cross Disaster Program manager.

“The training day is a way to learn how help those in the community who are effected by disasters,” she said. “This is the worst day of people’s lives when their house is gone everything they own is gone and we want to help ease the burden in any way we can.”

Having local volunteers within the organization is vital to allow the organization to respond to incidents as soon as possible.

“It’s important to have many volunteers around the area that way our respond time to disasters is quick,” Day said. “We currently have a 2 hour time frame for our volunteers to respond to a fire, but we want that to be a lot shorter.

“We use a mapping system to send responders, so if there is a fire near a volunteer’s home we will send that volunteer to respond. We also have shifts that volunteers take and if there is an incident within their shift they will respond.”

After finishing the one day event, training volunteers will be certified with the American Cross.

“Saturday is a one stop shop,” Day said. “After the day is over our volunteers will not have to go through another training; they will learn how to respond to disasters and how to offer support to the victims.”

However, the training day isn’t the only opportunity to learn to become a volunteer.

“We have online course available for people to take at their own convenience and pace,” Day said. “As soon as they reach out to us about their interest in becoming a volunteer we make the online course available to them and after completion they can respond to fires. This is a perfect way for those who can’t make it out Saturday or can’t be at training the entire day to learn how to volunteer with us.”

Chris Bell, Morristown-Hamblen Emergency Management Agency director, highlighted the importance of having volunteers be trained with the Red Cross.

“A lot of nonprofits are seeing a decrease in volunteers since the pandemic but the community needs to know how important it is to have locally trained volunteers in our community,” Bell said. “These volunteers respond to displace families who lost their home to a fire.

“The Red Cross helps people find a place to stay, give them gift cards for food and to purchase toiletries and clothes. It’s really important to have this organization in the time of need.”

The volunteers also help maintain disaster shelters offered to the community.

“Anytime we open a shelter the volunteers are the ones working it, checking people in and providing comfort to families who need support after going through a disaster,” Bell said.

From July 2021 to June 2022 the American Red Cross of Northeast Tennessee has responded to 24 disasters and have helped 32 families in Hamblen County. The organization provides food, shelter and comfort to displaced families after a disaster.

For more information on the Disaster Action Team Training day or how to volunteer with the American Red Cross of Northeast Tennessee, call Dawn Day at 423-863-0194.