RED CROSS TO HONOR VALLEY VOLUNTEERS.Byline: Sharline Chiang Daily News Staff Writer One of them urged fellow residents of steep, hilly hill·y adj. hill·i·er, hill·i·est 1. Having many hills. 2. Similar to a hill; steep. hill Topanga Canyon to learn how to survive natural disasters. Another translated brochures on emergency services emergency services Emergency care '…services …necessary to prevent death or serious impairment of health and, because of the danger to life or health, require the use of the most accessible hospital available and equipped to furnish those services' into Spanish. Yet another posed the crucial question to a Sun Valley family after a fire killed two of their children and their grandmother: How can I help? For their exemplary work, three San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. residents - Patricia MacNeil of Topanga, Virginia Rafelson of Canoga Park and Rod Stratton of Sylmar - will be among 11 American Red Cross American Red Cross: see Red Cross. volunteers honored today at the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. chapter's annual Spotlight Awards ceremony downtown. A Red Cross volunteer for the past 15 years, Rod Stratton still remembers his most heart-wrenching assignment: helping the Sun Valley couple who lost two daughters and the girls' grandmother in a garage fire last March. ``We helped them get some furniture and things together for them, and helped them with funeral arrangements,'' said Stratton, who will be receiving the Red Cross Disaster Services Spotlight Award. Stratton, a longtime professional emergency skills trainer, volunteers in Burbank. Stratton said working with disaster victims has its rewards. ``It really gives you a feeling of doing something good for people, when you go to someone's home and all it is is charcoal and they don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what to do or where to go,'' Stratton, 69, said. ``It helps to ease their suffering.'' Rafelson began working with the Red Cross 10 years ago through collaborative projects with her nonprofit A corporation or an association that conducts business for the benefit of the general public without shareholders and without a profit motive. Nonprofits are also called not-for-profit corporations. Nonprofit corporations are created according to state law. literacy organization, Canoga Park-based Basic Adult Spanish Education. She will be receiving the Red Cross Cultural Diversity Outreach Spotlight Award. A native of Mexico, Rafelson began translating Red Cross brochures into Spanish after an apartment fire made her realize that many non-English-speaking Latinos were unfamiliar with the organization. Rafelson said around 1990 a fire broke out in an apartment in which most of the residents were undocumented newcomers from Mexico or Central America Central America, narrow, southernmost region (c.202,200 sq mi/523,698 sq km) of North America, linked to South America at Colombia. It separates the Caribbean from the Pacific. . When the Red Cross came to help them evacuate e·vac·u·ate v. 1. To empty or remove the contents of. 2. To excrete or discharge waste matter, especially of the bowels. , many fled out of fear. Red Cross volunteers ``were saying in English come into the bus to go to a shelter,'' said the 69-year-old Rafelson. ``But many people thought they were going to be deported and ran away. I said, this has to stop.'' MacNeil knows that living in the beautiful yet remote Topanga Canyon area means having to prepare for fires, floods and other natural disasters. The 58-year-old former travel agent will receive the Red Cross Good Neighbor Spotlight Award for her work helping to empower Topanga Canyon residents with disaster preparedness pre·par·ed·ness n. The state of being prepared, especially military readiness for combat. Noun 1. preparedness - the state of having been made ready or prepared for use or action (especially military action); "putting them through the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness. By setting up a Red Cross emergency hotline, MacNeil, chairwoman of the coalition, and others volunteers helped direct hundreds of calls from worried residents during the 1996 fires in Malibu and Calabasas. Last month, the hotline came in handy again when heavy El Nino-powered rains threatened to trigger landslides and floods in the area. Living in Topanga Canyon, ``we know disaster's going to come - it's just a matter of when. Because of where we live, because we're in a very steep canyon we're very prone to natural disaster,'' MacNeil said. ``We've done our best to help ourselves.'' |
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