Wood County Commission marks Red Cross Month

PARKERSBURG -- The Wood County Commission approved a proclamation declaring March 2021 as Red Cross Month.

Sharon Kesselring, executive director of the American Red Cross of the Ohio River Valley (formerly Northwestern West Virginia), appeared before the Wood County Commission on Thursday to discuss what the Red Cross has been doing and how it has continued to operate during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"It is Red Cross Month and it is always a time for celebration for us, especially with everything that has happened in the last year," she said.

The Red Cross has worked to make sure its responses to both community needs and needs nationwide are still in place, continuous and ready to go 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Red Cross has helped with national disasters over the last year by still being able to put feet on the ground in impacted areas.

"We were able to do that in a safe and healthy manner," Kesselring said.

The Red Cross responded to the wildfires in Oregon, California and Washington, the derecho that hit the Midwest last year and as recently as the power outages that gripped Texas.

Locally, the Red Cross has seen an "uptick" in home fire responses.

Like, everyone else the Red Cross has been impacted by the pandemic, but has still been able to make things work in order to serve the community and those who need assistance.

The Red Cross is still in need of blood and has still been able to hold blood drives locally "in a safe and secure manner."

She credited Grand Central Mall with opening up to the agency, even in the days when the mall was shut down. The Red Cross was able to do its "lifesaving blood drives" at a time when there were few places to go.

The Red Cross learned all the things it needed to do and did the proper antibody testing to make sure donors knew if they had been exposed or knew if they have ever had COVID-19.

A benefit to giving blood is being given an antibody test, officials said.

Red Cross officials have been working remotely for a year.

"I have worked harder over the last year as have all of my co-workers," Kesselring said.

American Red Cross of the Ohio River Valley covers 15 counties in West Virginia and four counties in Ohio.

"We are still doing the services that we always needed to do," Kesselring said.

The Red Cross is beginning to start up some of its outreach projects, such as the Pillowcase Project and others for area children.

"It has been an amazing year and a true cause for celebration," Kesselring said.

In 2020, the local chapter had 27 responses where it assisted 100 people in Wood County alone, was able to train 627 people in CPR and first aid, collected over 2,500 units of blood which impacted over 7,000 lives and had over 100 volunteers registered in Wood County alone.

"We have not been able to put our arms around people over the last year," Kesselring said. "It has been a challenging year. Yet, it is still going. We are still out there and we haven't missed a beat. I am proud of so many people."

As the commission is preparing to work on its budget next week, Kesselring asked if they would be eligible for any funding. Officials are looking at allotments from the recent aid package that will be made to counties to see if they can provide any funding to community groups.

Commission President Blair Couch said they would have to make sure they weren't getting assistance through that money in another way, but they are planning at looking at assisting groups who do work in the community who haven't been helped much yet.

In its proclamation, the commission said it was a special time to honor those who aid those in need and the Red Cross has touched millions of lives each year.

"During the trying times of the coronavirus pandemic, people have stepped up to help others in need, whether it was responding to this year's record-breaking disasters across the country or rolling up their sleeves to give blood when our country faced a severe blood shortage," it said.

In other business, the commission heard from resident Eva Francis who lives near the Gihon Terraces Community. The commission has been monitoring clean-up efforts at the trailer park for several months as the owners have been trying to get titles on a number of abandoned trailers so they can be removed.

Francis said that trash and cockroaches from the park were impacting her property next to it as clean-up efforts have apparently slowed down. She has had to remove trash from her property that came from the trailer park. She has pictures that she was submitting to Wood County Compliance Officer Sarah Robinson.

Commissioners felt like progress gets made at the site and then it "backslides," Couch said. They said they would contact the owner and see if they can address these concerns and get an idea where the clean-up efforts are at.

The commission decided to move forward with efforts to get a dilapidated/abandoned property located at 109 Crawford Street in Parkersburg torn down. The property has been condemned. Officials want to have the owner of the property in to see if they would sign off on letting the county demolish the house there which has come off its foundation.

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com