Helen Jackson is a Facility Service Volunteer at the Illinois Red Cross’s Headquarter office in Chicago. If you’ve stopped by, there’s a good chance you’ve been greeted by Helen at the front desk – welcoming visitors, answering the phones, and serving everyone who comes in the doors during business hours. She gets to see a little bit of everything – and all kinds of people.

Visitors come for many reasons, and that reflects so much of what the Red Cross does: they come to donate blood, to take CPR and First Aid classes, to request smoke detector installations in their homes, and to apply for recovery assistance if they’ve recently experienced a home fire or other natural disaster. Helen refers volunteer inquiries to Volunteer Services, and she recommends local charities that accept household donations if the Red Cross cannot take them. There’s also the business side that Helen facilitates: sorting the mail, responding to vendors, fielding calls from around the state, and directing blood pick-ups to Biomedical Services in the back of the building.

Every day’s different, and Helen likes it that way: “I’m their first point of entry. I talk to everyone and try to help them. I see visitors who are happy, angry, distraught if they’ve just been through a disaster. And despite this, they are friendly because the Red Cross can offer help. That’s why this work is meaningful to me.” Helen refers callers to other social services and charities beyond what the Red Cross can provide. She connects people to what they need, and where they need to go.

Helen started at the Red Cross in 2019, about a year before COVID-19 closed down the office. She was recommended to the Red Cross by Easterseals, an organization that places seniors and those with disabilities in volunteer positions. “I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life and I didn’t know about the Red Cross before I came here. It makes you want to volunteer at the Red Cross when you see all that they do.”

When the office re-opened in July 2021, Helen was back at the front desk, greeting all who enter. The post-COVID world is different, not as many people are in the office each day as before. But the Red Cross mission is just as important. “Anyone who volunteers for the Red Cross will be helping, and possibly saving a life.”

We are grateful for all you do, Helen!

Written by Communications & Marketing Volunteer, Virginia Hopley