(upbeat music begins) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll hear alternative rock music from a Detroit Lakes Minnesota band.

But first joining me now is the Red Cross Executive Director of Western North Dakota, Zoe Wergeland Manstrom.

Zoe, thanks for joining us today.

- Thanks for having me.

- Well, you're here today to talk about Red Cross Month and to tell the folks about Red Cross of Western North Dakota.

But before we do that, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background and where you're from.

- Well, I'm from Bismarck.

I came to the Red Cross just about four years ago now, and I absolutely love it.

I love being part of an organization that is part of the community, and giving back to the community, and just fully ingrained.

- Okay.

For those who may not know, what is the Red Cross and what's its mission?

- Our mission is to alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.

So we're really there to be humanitarians, to be there before crisis has happened, to help prepare people, to be there when disaster strikes, to be a helping hand and support, and to help support our military families and their veterans.

Veterans and their families.

- Yeah, well, so you do a lot, and of course a lot of people don't know about you until there's a tragedy or an event that happens.

But can you talk about maybe the history of the Red Cross?

How did it start and how did it come about?

- Yeah, we have a great history and it's very long.

We were actually started in 1881 by Clara Barton.

She was known as the Angel of the Battlefield during the Civil War.

And after that she started the Office of the Missing Soldier with permission from President Lincoln.

And that's really similar to what she continued doing in starting the Red Cross.

She became familiar with the movement when she was on a trip to Switzerland.

And then after that she became just increasingly more interested in it.

She even volunteered during the Franco Prussian War with Red Cross and brought that movement back home to the United States.

So we were formed in 1881.

The United States ratified the Geneva Convention in 1882, and that really serves as a basis of what we do.

- So what services does the Red Cross of Western North Dakota provide?

- Yeah, so it is hard to keep track of it, 'cause there is quite a lot.

But essentially we provide disaster services.

So if people are facing anything like a home fire or large disasters like a flood, things like that, that are community wide, we have volunteers and we are there for them during those processes, during those major occurrences.

We also provide training services, so CPR, AED, lifeguard, water safety, all those types of things so that people are prepared.

We also provide disaster preparedness classes, like Prepare with Pedro, which is geared towards kindergarten children, and be Red Cross ready.

So we teach everything from how to be prepared for winter, what that means for winter driving, what you should have in your car, that type of thing.

And then we also support our military, just like Clara Barton did when she started the organization.

So we provide emergency communication services, so when active duty service members have an emergency in their family, they use us to communicate with them and to help them make arrangements to get those service members back in time for those emergencies.

And we also provide resiliency trainings and support for military families and ongoing support for veterans.

- So with veterans, I mean, are these mostly overseas veterans or are these stationed anywhere in the United States or overseas?

- Absolutely anywhere.

Yeah, so we are actively on all of the bases in the United States as well as bases overseas and on the front lines.

- So what is the size of your service area, I guess?

So how many counties or communities do you serve?

- It's quite broad.

We serve 26 communities, or 26 counties in Western North Dakota, including the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara are our three affiliated tribes and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

- So you said 26, are there other Red Cross organizations in North Dakota?

- Yes, there's also a chapter that supports the East North Dakota Northwest Minnesota chapter.

- Okay, do y'all collaborate or work together, or y'all pretty much service your areas and that's it?

How do y'all work together?

- No, so we're all part of a bigger Red Cross movement.

So the two chapters in North Dakota are part of the Minnesota Dakotas region, including North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota.

We're part of the North Central division, which is part of the American Red Cross.

So we are the American Red Cross and we operate locally.

- Okay, so yeah, it's part, you're the small segment of just the Red Cross, really across the United States for Western North Dakota, and of course March is gonna be recognized, or is recognized at Red Cross month.

What does that mean?

What is that all about?

- Yeah, so that was started in 1943 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed the first March as Red Cross month.

And every president since then has reestablished that.

So we've been celebrating this for quite a while and it's really our opportunity to recognize our volunteers and everyone that makes our mission possible of being there for our communities in times of need.

- Yeah, so obviously it is a nationally recognized month, but is there national things that go on that everybody does?

Or is it state by state sort of does their own thing?

- There is a national Giving Day on March 25th, which is essentially a call out for, hey, we really are supported by donors.

That is where almost all of our funding comes from.

But otherwise it is a local thing.

How are we able to recognize folks?

In Bismarck, we're actually doing a pickleball tournament on March 14th and 15th, so we're encouraging people to sign up and come play some pickleball and learn a little bit more about the Red Cross.

- So there you go.

So you've got, well, this is for March, 2026.

But are you working on some other events, though?

It may be preliminarily, maybe you don't have 'em all planned out yet.

- Yeah, absolutely, we're always working on events and we're always open for more ideas of places where we can be present, present so that we can talk about what we do as the Red Cross.

'Cause people don't know about us, they don't know to ask for help.

So yeah, so we're working on our pickleball tournament coming up in March.

We're also looking at doing some preparedness classes at the local library as well as doing a, what we call a sound the alarm event.

And so that's where we, we have volunteers and community members that go door to door installing free smoke alarms, which is, when we do a sound the alarm event, it's more of a specific campaign targeting a specific community, but we actually install free smoke alarms at any time.

So if anyone is interested in having us stop by and look at their fire safety plan for their home and install a free smoke alarm, we can do that.

You sign up at redcross.org.

- Hm, well later on the show we'll give the address or website for that.

Interesting then, so if you need a free smoke alarm, there you go.

Why is it important to recognize organizations like the Red Cross?

- Because it's really just about knowing about us.

We need volunteers, we need people to know that they can volunteer with us and so that they can help spread the mission.

We need people to know that we're here for them so that they can ask for us to be there.

And so if we're not known, we can't help, and we can't grow our mission, and we can't continue to provide the frameworks that communities can support themselves.

- You know, since one reason for Red Cross month is to recognize the Red Cross, but it's also to recognize your volunteers.

Maybe let's talk a minute, because how many staff do you have at the Red Cross?

- We have two in Western North Dakota.

- So two staff, but how many volunteers do you have any given year?

- That's a great question, because to be a volunteer you can have any range of involvement.

So we have some, probably two handfuls of volunteers that are really actively engaged on almost like a day by day basis.

And then we have folks that are able to volunteer here and there, maybe a couple times a year at most.

So we actually have about 112 people that are on our volunteer roster.

But it's really, you know, to become a volunteer, you can sign up for whatever you want to do and whatever you're comfortable with.

- And when you say whatever you want to do, so what kind of training do Red Cross volunteers actually receive?

Do they do it on the job training or do you have prepared classes that they go through for the training?

- That's a great question, we have both.

So most of it is in advanced training.

We have copious amounts of training that you can do online.

And honestly, if you're looking to expand your resume as like a young person just starting out, this is a great opportunity.

Become a Red Cross volunteer and we have lots of training that we can offer, both virtually and in person.

And then we also do on the job trainings, especially for like when we have major deployments for national natural disasters.

Like for example, when there's a hurricane or something like that, our local volunteers will actually deploy to those disasters and help set up shelters and things like that.

- Yeah, you mentioned preparedness two or three times in this.

- [Zoe] It's a big part.

- When you say preparedness though, prepared for what?

Prepared, I mean disasters I get, but so what kind of preparedness are you doing?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

So typically when I say that word, I'm talking about disaster preparedness.

So what it means to be ready for when disaster strikes.

So that's knowing where your go kit is or your plan for how to evacuate and having your plan for when you evacuate.

Here's your emergency contact information, here's your insurance, here are the prescriptions you have, that type of thing.

That's part of being prepared, and those preparedness trainings, it can also include CPR.

We also offer a free hands only CPR training, which actually we're going to be doing at the pickleball tournament.

But yeah, so that's typically what I mean by preparedness.

For children, like in our Prepare with Pedro program, it is specifically geared towards younger students.

So it's less alarming, but it still gives them things to practice, like how to breathe calmly when you are starting to feel stressed just so that they can create those coping mechanisms.

- Yeah, so it's not all about major disasters for a large amount of people all the time.

- [Zoe] Correct.

- It can be for an individual family.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- So what does it mean to be a Red Cross volunteer?

Are there specific roles or is do they just do general things?

- Well, you could be a Red Cross volunteer, but there are so many different positions that we fill.

It is similar to a job position that we have for volunteers in the Red Cross.

So you could be doing everything from being what we call a DAT responder, disaster action team.

So you may be the person that's getting a call in the middle of the night, if you sign up for that and that's what you want, getting a call to respond to a home fire and be there with the family that's being affected and offer them our tools for working through that disaster all the way to offering them direct financial assistance.

That's what our disaster action team does.

To helping me with community events, like the pickleball tournament or something like that.

- Well, my history or my remembering it, do Red Cross, do you actually train young people to be lifeguards and do CPR and that type of thing?

- Yep, that's part of our training classes.

And so that's on our training services side of things, that's one of the things that we have a certificate for.

So we have local partners that provide those trainings.

- Well, you talked about your volunteers, 100 plus, that help you across Western North Dakota, but you're working in Western North Dakota, a lot of rural areas.

So does that add to the importance of those volunteers for Western North Dakota and for the Red Cross?

- Well, absolutely.

Yeah, anyone that knows here, that lives here knows that just the amount of time it takes to drive, say from Bismarck to Williston is quite extensive.

So we wouldn't be able to serve that community if we didn't have volunteers there, or be able to serve them in a timely manner.

That being said, if we don't have a volunteer present in the area, for example, to respond to a home fire, we do mobile responses as well.

So we will work off of a phone and make sure that those people are being taken care of.

But we really much prefer to be there in person.

And so we really need volunteers all throughout West North Dakota to help make that happen.

And we do have supplies strategically placed throughout Western North Dakota that are accessible, especially like, for example, if we need to set up a shelter.

If there was a tornado in Dickinson, for example, that type of thing.

But yeah, we really rely on volunteers to be present in those communities, living in those communities, that can not only be available when a disaster like that strikes, but also to be our eyes and ears in that community and help identify ways that we can be better partners.

- Well, because there you go, if a tornado happens, we all hear about it.

But if there's a house fire, I mean, you in Bismarck may not hear about a house fire in Crosby or Williston right away.

So do you depend on those volunteers to inform you and then address the situation?

- Yes and no.

When it comes specifically for a home fire, we try to make sure that we have local relationships with the local fire departments as well as the fire marshal's office.

- Well, with that said, do you work with other organizations and other nonprofits, and then obviously law enforcement and fire department, I guess?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So that is part of our community mobilization model, which I've kind of been alluding to with the, we need volunteers, we need to be a part of all the communities in that, yes, we absolutely rely on our volunteers, and on our community partners, and we want them to rely on us.

Since we really endeavor to create a symbiotic relationship there.

But really it doesn't work if we're duplicating efforts.

So we wanna make sure that we are in constant communication with them.

- Yeah, well you've touched around this, so with that in the rural area I talked about, what are the challenges that come up for serving Western North Dakota for the Red Cross?

- Number of people corresponding to the number of volunteers that we have and just the sheer distance, and then when the weather starts getting bad, or, for example, it's winter time, so when the weather, the roads get icy, and it's very cold, it can be even more difficult if we don't have volunteers right there.

- So where does your funding come from?

- Most of our funding comes from donors.

So over 90% of our funding is directly from donors.

So that's why we really rely on our volunteers and our donors, and having a volunteer workforce keeps our costs low, and the donors ensure that we're able to remain impartial and neutral.

- If someone becomes a volunteer, are they a volunteer for life?

Are they a volunteer for a period of time or until they say, well, I'm moving, or I'm too busy now or whatever?

How does that work?

- Yeah, well we like to stay connected to our volunteers, and so if you're not interested, we theoretically would know right away, because you would tell us.

But yeah, you can be a volunteer for as long as you like.

- Yeah, so when working with the other nonprofits, how closely do you work with, and maybe it's the fire department more closely, or the police department.

So yeah, really how do you make those connections?

Do they contact your office, do you contact them?

- Both, both.

So we wanna make sure that, for example, our connections with the emergency managers are close and decently personal, so that they feel comfortable picking up the phone and calling us at any time of the night when something happens.

For example, like an explosion or something unexpected to as far out as like, say we're expecting severe storms, tornadoes, that type of thing.

So we can be having those conversations before they happen and are prepared for them, to conducting exercises to prepare for what could possibly happen.

But yeah, even outside of those very structured channels, we also wanna make sure that we are connected to the other local nonprofits, like the Salvation Army for example.

We partner with them pretty frequently to establish shelters.

'Cause for example, we have to be very careful with how we spend our dollars because they do come from donors.

And so if we're going to open a shelter, for example, but there's another nonprofit that's already opened a shelter, we wanna be working closely with them so we can maximize the impact of what we're able to do.

- Well that's what I was trying to understand, with 26 counties, that's a lot of contacts and a lot of information that you need to collect and understand.

So if people are interested in volunteering and want to get involved, what's the best way they can do that?

- You go to RedCross.org, it has everything there.

It's easy to remember and there's gonna be a button to donate now, there's gonna be a button to volunteer now.

And then it'll take you through the process of what are you, what are you interested in doing?

You fill out an application to become a volunteer and then you're gonna get a phone call and they're gonna, people are gonna walk you through exactly what are you interested in, and then find the right role for you.

- Yeah.

Well we wish you the best of luck with the Red Cross and we appreciate everything you do.

- Thank you, thanks for your help.

- Thank you.

Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music begins) Conor Lee, originally from Fergus Falls, Minnesota, is an active musician, composer, and performer with a degree in jazz studies from MSUM.

His own music is a complex integration of alternative rock and jazz.

Listen as his band performs the original song "Dusk."

(dramatic music begins) (dramatic music swells) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music mellows) (intense music begins) (intense music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (intense music continues) (intense music continues) (ethereal synth solo swells) (upbeat music continues) Well that's all we have for "Prairie Pulse” this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music begins) - [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.