Boston College’s American Red Cross Disaster Action Team responds to small, medium, and large scale disasters in the 127 cities and towns of the Massachusetts Bay Region.

We are a very active part of the regional Monday Night Team, and are on call every Monday from 5pm until 9am the next morning. The team meets biweekly at the Chapter Building in Copley Square to train, prepare and plan for disasters, as well as to take field trips to learn about the other parts of the emergency services infrastructure in Massachusetts. We respond to an average of 2-3 disasters per month, which typically include house fires, floods, and blizzards. The team has also played an active role in First Aid at the Boston Marathon, and in staffing national disaster drills like Operation Atlas. In addition, opportunities exist for longer term national deployments in the wake of mammoth disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

What happens on the scene?
There are a multitude of services that the Red Cross provides, including:

• Mass Care & Feeding (Providing shelter, clothing and food)
• Family Services (Providing money to help clients rebuild after a disaster)
• Disaster Health Services (administering First Aid and taking care of clients’ medical problems)
• Disaster Mental Health Services (Grief Counseling)
• Damage Assessment (making determinations as to the amount of property damaged by disasters).

There are a variety of jobs in each of these categories, plus a multitude of support jobs like driving that all need volunteers to fill. On any one call, the average volunteer will probably participate in most if not all of these roles.

The team is A LOT of fun – we are a close knit group that enjoys working together and serving the cities and towns of our community. It is a great way to see many of the areas in and around Boston, to learn about emergency management & leadership, and to make a direct and immediate impact on the lives of our clients.

Past Field Trips

• Boston Chief Medical Examiner’s Office
• MASSPORT fire station
• The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency
• as well as many others.

For more information on the Monday Night Team, browse to http://www.arcmb.org

Interested in joining or want more information?
Contact Disaster Action Coordinator at caseykp@bc.edu or elizabeth.peyton.1@bc.edu.