Ralph Boyd, center, president and CEO of the American Red Cross Massachusetts, enjoys a laugh with Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, second from front right, during a ceremonial ribbon cutting at the new American Red Cross facility at 150 Brookdale Drive in Springfield on Wednesday, December 3. The new 16,000 square-foot facility houses the American Red Cross administration, blood services, disaster relief services, emergency communications, and health and safety training center. Joining the ceremony are, left-right, Kim Goulette, executive director of the Western Massachusetts Office, Jeff Meyer, CEO of the Massachusetts / Connecticut Blood Services Regions, and Sarah Corrigan, 1st chairman of the Board of Directors. Attendees of the hour-long ceremony were treated to refreshments and a tour of the new facility. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – The Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross has consolidated down to a single office in Springfield but will still conduct activities at some former branches, said Executive Director Kim Goulette.
Goulette was named executive director for the region this summer, but has over 20 years experience working with national and local non-profit organizations, predominantly homeless shelters and soup kitchens in greater Springfield.
“The office is still there, we’re still at the church and services are still the same,” said Goulette of greater Westfield Red Cross services. “Even though we’ve consolidated the back-office expenses, we still have classes there.”
Goulette added that the Springfield office has been providing disaster services for four or five years now with several volunteers who live in the Westfield area.
Despite the elimination of the executive director positions for Westfield and the Berkshires, Goulette believes services will remain the same.
“We’re looking at expanding our team a little farther out so we can make sure that we’re serving everybody,” she said, no small task for an office that will now be handling the disaster relief needs of four counties.
The challenges faced by the Pioneer Valley’s Red Cross chapter are obviously different but in some ways easier than those in the eastern Mass. chapters.
“In Boston, they have many more fires compared to what we have out here, but they struggle because, as a city, they don’t have the space to store as many vehicles,” Goulette said. “Getting volunteers and moving them around is a little bit more challenging in a city versus where we are.”
The Pioneer Valley chapter also has a marked advantage not just in storage, but in office space.
“We have storage in Whately, which services that area (Franklin and Hampshire Counties), the office in the Berkshires (Pittsfield), plus the space in Westfield. We still have quite a bit of space and storage for our volunteers,” said Goulette.
Westfield Community Development Director Peter Miller, who also served as vice chair for the Greater Westfield chapter, said that the chapter no longer has a local governance.
“Organizationally, we don’t really exist anymore as we’ve been consolidated,” said Miller. “The (Westfield) board is in a position of limbo. There’s a number of us who don’t really have a huge interest in participating in the larger valley. There may be a couple that do.”
Miller spoke of the loss of former Greater Westfield Red Cross Director Rich Rubin and his staff as “really devastating” to any Red Cross efforts in the city.
“Without Rich, it is certainly a shell of it’s former self,” he said. “We’ve been told and I have no reason to doubt that a number of their services will continue. Their classes will continue in Westfield and that disaster and fire services will still be met.”
“I think where the concern is here… we had pretty robust volunteer and fundraising operations in town and without a local connection, that makes that effort a lot more challenging,” said Miller. “Westfield is a pretty parochial community and there’s a number of local charities that the Red Cross competed against here.”
Miller stated that he hasn’t heard of anyone picking up the mantel for the Outstanding Community Leadership event, which raised $50,000 for the Red Cross.
“I can’t imagine that there’s somebody out there who is going to organize that the way that Rich did,” said Miller.
“The best thing to do is to go on redcross.com and sign up as a volunteer. You can pick and choose the area you’re in, what you want to do and we have the ability at that point to get you involved,” Goulette said.
Once the busy Christmas season has passed, the Pioneer Valley Red Cross will be looking to form “leadership teams” composed of community ambassadors and disaster action team volunteers.
“We’re going to start increasing our numbers and looking for larger support within the community,” said Goulette.
Red Cross efforts in Westfield will still continue in the new year, such as the home fire preparedness campaign with the Westfield Fire Department in January, which assist the city’s large elderly populations smoke and carbon monoxide detector installation.
“It’s a great program we’re working on nationally and in January we will have a set date,” said Goulette.
