Local Red Cross Volunteers Provide Lifeline for Families Strained by 2025 Disasters

In a powerful display of community, volunteers provided safe refuge, basic health services, spiritual care, and replaced lost items like prescription medications and medical equipment for individuals and families impacted by disasters. The Red Cross also distributed more than $1.6 million in financial assistance directly to thousands of households in Michigan recovering from these life-changing events.

The Red Cross plays a critical role in helping families and communities recover in the weeks and months after a disaster. Home fires, for example, are the most frequent disaster and claim seven lives every day in the United States.

Since Jan. 1, volunteers have responded to more than 1,600 home fires across the state, including multi-family fires in Alma, East China, Okemos and Pontiac. A multi-family fire is a fire in a building with separate living units like apartments and condominiums. Most recently, the Red Cross provided assistance to nearly 90 residents displaced by a fire at an American House Senior Living facility in Southgate.

The need for this support shows no sign of slowing down. In the U.S., Red Cross home fire responses spike nearly 20% during the holidays due to cooking and heating accidents.

In other disasters in 2025, more than 70 volunteers supported a disaster operation after an ice storm left more than 90,000 people without power and heat for days in March and April in northern Michigan. Volunteers also helped residents impacted by flooding in southwest Detroit in February.

“Thanks to generous donations, our volunteers have the resources to deliver comfort, care and support to help people recover,” said Latoysa “Toy” Rooks, regional disaster officer for the Red Cross in Michigan. “Through these simple acts of giving, we come together as a community to bring light to a family’s darkest days – right when it is needed most.”

On Giving Tuesday, Dec. 2, and throughout the holidays, visit redcross.org to make a financial donation or make an appointment to give blood. Individuals can also register for Red Cross volunteer opportunities in their community.

Here are other examples of how volunteers stepped up through the Red Cross to help those in need:

• More than 100 volunteers in Michigan supported major disaster operations in other parts of the country including wildfires in California, storms in Kentucky and Missouri, and a typhoon in Alaska.
• As the nation’s largest blood supplier, the Red Cross is grateful to the millions of donors nationwide, including Michigan, who rolled up a sleeve throughout the year for patients in need. Nearly 100,000 blood and platelet donors helped save lives in Michigan and across the country, including people facing life-threatening conditions like cancer, sickle cell disease, childbirth complications and traumatic injuries. Patients rely on a consistent blood supply to survive and heal, and it’s the blood already on hospital shelves that helps save lives in an emergency.
• Through the global Hero Care Network, Red Crossers support military members, veterans and their families in Michigan throughout the year by helping them cope with the challenges of service. Services include resiliency workshops and connecting deployed service members with their loved ones in times of emergency.
• The Red Cross celebrated 10 individuals in Michigan who were honored with a National Lifesaving Award for helping to save lives in their community with Red Cross skills like first aid and CPR.

About our Regional Holiday Supporters

The Red Cross Michigan Region is grateful for corporate partners like OnStar who contribute to our Holiday Campaign. Thanks to the generosity of OnStar and other supporters, the Red Cross is able to bring help and hope to people in need.

The Michigan Region has highlighted a series of memorable stories in its Year-In-Review of how volunteers, employees and donors are making a difference in 2025.

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MEDIA CONTACT: David Olejarz / david.olejarz@redcross.org / 313-303-0606

About the American Red Cross
The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides comfort to victims of disasters; supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood; teaches skills that save lives; distributes international humanitarian aid; and supports veterans, military members and their families. The Red Cross is a nonprofit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to deliver its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or CruzRojaAmericana.org, or follow us on social media.