The Heroes Next Door

My time with Phil Martinez was one of the high points of my year! One of the things that really warmed my heart as I talked to Phil was that the volunteers there don't keep their work in Colorado when disaster strikes, and this is something that you'll hear when you talk to Red Cross chapters.

In my conversations, people take the Red Cross's work for granted. I see this a lot in legacy organizations.

They have this really large, young demographic of people who have grown up with that organization as an institution, and whether that's the Red Cross or the Boys and Girls Club or the NAACP, it's harder to get younger people to volunteer for organizations like this because they just assume that they've always been around and always will be.

It really takes a lot of proactive messaging to understand that the Red Cross is something that's not just those huge events that you see on the news where there's a telethon and people send a bunch of money in, but small things that happen in communities and neighborhoods that are just like yours.