A few hours after watching the horrific events unfold this past
Sunday, our Regional CEO Josh Lockwood boarded a plane for Orlando to support
the Red Cross response. For the next several days, Josh will assist regional
Red Cross leadership in Central Florida and dozens of volunteers (including
several from our region) as they work to provide comfort, compassion and love
to a community in shock. Yesterday, we took a few moments to talk to Josh about
his deployment.
Are you
currently at the Central Florida Red Cross
Headquarters in Orlando? Can you talk about your initial impressions since
arriving?
Yes, I’m here at the local Red Cross right now. I first want to
offer my deepest sympathies to this community and my heartfelt condolences to
all who’ve lost loved ones. Being in the family assistance center and being
confronted with people who had lost loved ones, all you feel is compassion and
empathy. We just wish so much that these folks didn’t have to go through what
they’re going through. I’ve also been blown away by the outpouring of love and
generosity here as well as the sense of resiliency.
Can you talk about Sunday morning and the process of making
yourself available to deploy?
Like so many people, I saw the event unfolding and I was in
disbelief. I felt a combination of shock and outrage and sadness that such a
massacre would take place. We always, as Red Crossers, have an impulse to want
to do something and to help. As a gay man I personally felt an added desire to
contribute in a meaningful way. And I was recently asked to be the
national sponsor of the LGBT employee and volunteer group at the Red Cross
and I now lead this group. It’s such a horrible event and I felt that, given
my roles
at the Red Cross, I needed to be a part of the
response in Orlando. I immediately reached out to my counterparts down here [in
Orlando] and to national Red Cross leadership and said I wanted to go. I left
for Florida Sunday afternoon. Prior to
leaving, my husband and I sat down with our six year old son and explained why
I was traveling to Florida and why it was important that I do this.
Can you talk about when you first started working with the Red
Cross team in Orlando?
I was connecting with people on the ground before I left, while I
was in the airport and during my flight. I got to Orlando at 1 AM on Monday. A
few hours after arriving, I went to the family assistance center to thank the
mental-health volunteers who had been working all night and all day to support
families grappling with this news. This included many large, close-knit, Latino
families with extended families who were being informed one by one, that their
loved ones were deceased.
Red Crossers, primarily local mental-health volunteers, were
supporting these families. I felt good that I was able to provide some thanks
and care to them.
Can you talk more about the volunteers on the ground?
There’s a large contingent of LGBT Red Crossers who immediately
said that this is personal, who have had a desire and a need to be here at
this particular moment. I accompanied many of these volunteers to one of the
vigils Monday night and there are going to be more every single night. There’s
a feeling of camaraderie and loss and a real sense of mission at a basic
humanitarian level but also a camaraderie with the LGBT community at this
moment in our nation’s history. There are also a lot
of Latino employees and volunteers from the Orlando area and beyond, given
that most of the victims of the massacre are Latino.
There are a lot of dynamics at play, some of these young men and
women were not out to their families. There are family members realizing their
child is an LGBT young person only through their death. To serve these
families, Red Cross is partnering with the GLBT Center of Central Florida (The Center) where we are sending mental
health volunteers. We developed co-branded signage for families who may feel
more comfortable seeing the Red Cross as a traditional place to seek support at
this particular moment. We are proud to volunteer with The Center and other
organizations like Zebra Coalition, Equality Florida, Children’s Disaster
Services and the Orlando Chamber of Commerce to serve the needs right now.
What is important for New Yorkers to know about the Red Cross work
in Orlando?
We at the Red Cross are striving every minute, of every day to
meet unmet needs as quickly as possible. We’re doing that by offering services
directly, by working with any number of incredible nonprofit and governmental
partners. We are working 24/7 to make sure these survivors and
families of people who were slaughtered are receiving anything they need that
might help them in small and large ways in real time. In an operation like
this, it’s about speed and compassion to make sure people are getting what they
need, how they need it and from the appropriate person they need to receive it
from.
What do you tell people who ask how they can help?
There are a number of things people can do to help at this
particular time: they can give financially to one of the funds that has been
set up by other organizations; they can learn first aid skills so wherever they
are they would feel empowered to act; they can raise their voices in opposition
to violence.
After 9/11 many people were shocked by such a terrible thing
and felt the need to do something whether it was directly related to that event
or just to be a person who had a stake in bettering people’s live around them.
One hope I have is that all of us feel motivated to make the world a better
place after this life-changing tragedy.
Anything else you want to add?
From social media, to phone calls and emails, so many people have
offered words of gratitude or thanks. I really do feel humbled that when
something so horrible like this happens, at a time when so many of us want to
do something, I feel fortunate to be in a role where I could almost immediately
start to have an impact and be productive in trying to help people in this horrible
moment.
Following Sandy, 17,000 people came to New York to help. I felt
compelled to do the same when called upon. Prior to leaving, I felt supported
with really positive New York energy. I feel so much support and love from Red
Crossers and from people outside the Red Cross in New York and I’m certainly
trying to do my best. I’m channeling this energy here in Orlando.
