This year, Wylie High’s Red Cross club had its first club meeting on Aug 29. The club was created by club sponsor Whitney Palka and club president Nishitha Saini (11).
​The Red Cross club is a volunteer club dedicated to alleviating human suffering and turning compassion into action.
“We are planning to help by volunteering around the community, disaster preparedness, service to the armed forces, blood drives, fundraising, and learning life-saving skills such as CPR, AED, and FAST training,” Saini said (11).
Furthermore, the club will be taught by a member of the American Red Cross.
“We will have a Red Cross Club specialist that we report to about meetings and all, and we meet with the Youth Service Board as well,” Saini said (11).
Moreover, the Red Cross club helps serve the Wylie community.“Any service that we would do, and we were saying service to our armed forces would be one thing, Another thing we would do is blood drives, fundraising, is also another one, and helping with disasters, such as, you know making if anything was to ever come up come about, they’re ready to jump in and volunteer wherever they’re needed,” Mrs Palka said.
Not only will the Red Cross club provide community service, but it will also assist with disaster relief.“It helps out a lot, everything that they do, any kind of drive for supplies, then we will obviously donate to the Red Cross so they have all those supplies in the event of a disaster,” Mrs Palka said.
In addition, the Red Cross club teaches first aid skills. “Time management, leadership, you know, fostering their ability to utilize their first aid, and you know, keep their skills once they learn CPR and all that, just keep those skills strong,” Mrs Palka said
Aside from first aid skills, the Red Cross club teaches life skills.“The sense of dedication towards the club and cooperation with other members, leadership, and time management,” Saini said (11).
Overall, the Red Cross club can mean different things to various individuals.“The Red Cross Club, to me, is a way to bring students with the same goal of learning life-saving skills to alleviate human suffering and be well-prepared for disasters,” Saini said (11).
As well as bringing a sense of duty to others. “Because I worked in EMS before I became a teacher, the Red Cross represents everything as far as providing disaster relief and helping those in need is something I have always been very passionate about, so that’s just the main reason it’s everything it represents everything who I am,” Mrs Palka said.