GivingTuesday helps those affected in emergencies and weather disasters

It's another great year for GivingTuesday! From giving blood to volunteer work, Katie Zwerk from the American Red Cross explains how you can help.

Transcript

00:00You may have been doing a lot of shopping, of course, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday

00:04through the weekend. And then it's today, of course, which is Tuesday. It's Giving Tuesday,

00:08global generosity movement to focus on humanitarian donations everywhere.

00:14The American Red Cross is there for every natural disaster. Katie's work is a national

00:20spokesperson for the American Red Cross. And Miss Katie, thank you for joining us here today.

00:25Thanks for having me. As you mentioned, today's Giving Tuesday, and a lot of people are looking

00:31for ways to give with meaning. And one way you can do that is by giving the lifesaving gift of

00:37a blood donation. Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. That can be cancer patients,

00:45those living with sickle cell disease, new moms, trauma victims. A single car accident

00:51victim can require as many as 100 units of blood. And when you go in to give blood,

00:56you're giving about typically one unit of blood. So as you can see, the need is great.

01:01And this is something that you can do during this time of year to give back to others.

01:05Yeah, it's such an important reminder this time of year, especially when it comes to winter

01:08weather. We see a lot of car accidents this year. And hey, speaking of big weather events with this

01:15past year, multiple hurricanes, how is the American Red Cross's relief efforts continuing

01:20in the Gulf States and throughout the Southeast? Yeah, so I'm actually in Georgia,

01:26and I was deployed during Hurricane Helene. And I saw the devastation myself on the ground. We

01:32spoke to families that trees had split their homes in half, and they had to go into shelters,

01:39Red Cross shelters. They had to receive meals and assistance from generous donors across the

01:46country. And so the need is great. These families are still struggling. Many have lost their homes,

01:53not only here in Georgia, but obviously in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina.

01:58And so, you know, on this Giving Tuesday, we're really asking people, you know,

02:03a great way that you can give back is by giving a donation. Even something as small as five or

02:08$10 can really help these families that are struggling. And how can people give to the

02:15Red Cross on Giving Tuesday? So you can give a financial donation by going to RedCross.org.

02:23You can give a blood donation by going to RedCrossBlood.org. In fact, we have these really

02:29cool socks, this incentive right now for those that give between now and December 8th while

02:35supplies last. We're celebrating 30 years of friends. As you can see, there's a fun turkey on

02:42here. Central Perk, you get not one but two socks. So if you sign up to donate blood while supplies

02:48last now between December 8th, you get these. You can give one to a friend. Or you can volunteer.

02:55You know, we're always looking for volunteers to help either in our shelters, help with disasters,

03:00because we're seeing, you know, continuous disasters over and over again because of the

03:05severe weather that we have across the country. So we always need volunteers to help those in

03:11need. Well, hopefully hearing from you today and seeing those awesome socks is giving someone the

03:17initiative to either donate blood or make that financial donation or volunteer within their

03:21community. Katie Zwerch, National Spokesperson for the American Red Cross. Thanks for joining

03:26us on AccuWeather on this Giving Tuesday. Thank you so much for having me.