City Red Cross chapter helps victims of 300 blazes yearly

Group provided variety of aid during wildfire

By Dick Foster
Denver Rocky Mountain News Southern Bureau

Kati and John Scheibl had always envisioned the American Red Cross as the group that helps victims of hurricanes and other far-off disasters.

That was before the Hi Meadow Fire swept through their mountain neighborhood last June, destroying 51 homes near Pine, southwest of Denver.

"It's one of those things that you don't really think about until it happens to you, and then you do realize what they do," said Kati Scheibl.

This year, the Mile High Chapter of the American Red Cross, which provides volunteers and financial help for disaster relief at home and abroad, had a big one in its own back yard.

Sixty-nine families driven from their homes in the Hi Meadow Fire were given emergency food, clothing, shelter, household supplies and other assistance from their hometown Red Cross chapter.

"We spent many, many days up in the mountains," said chapter spokesman Matt Bertram.

Scheibl and her husband were among the evacuees, forced to leave all but their pets behind.

"We left with no clothes, no personal items at all. We just had what we were wearing," Scheibl said. "We had no idea what was going on. We could be out of our home for two weeks or back the next day."

Red Cross volunteers opened an evacuation center at Conifer High School for dozens like the Scheibls.

"They gave us vouchers to get clothing, gas and food," she said. "They were there for whoever needed it."

The Scheibls stayed with a relative nearby, but many evacuees needed shelter, so the Red Cross wrote motel vouchers for dozens of families.

"It was great to have something to fall back on so fast," said Scheibl's husband, John. "When you're thinking, 'What am I going to do?' Boom, it was there that quick. That was something that really took the pressure off of me."

The Scheibls' home was spared by the fire.

Each year, the Mile High Chapter responds to more than 300 residential fires throughout the Denver area.

"They're silent disasters, not on the scale of the Hi Meadow Fire, but to the family in that home, it's just as devastating," Bertram said.

Through its $7.8 million budget, 10,000 volunteers and 120 paid staff, the Mile High Chapter operates a number of other community programs.

It provided 19,450 trips to doctors offices and other destinations in the past year for more than 2,100 elderly and disabled people, and it trained 91,977 people in basic lifesaving classes.

The chapter began a new Youth Corps program in five area high schools, recruiting teens and providing funds for community improvement projects such as graffiti removal.

And there are its traditional Red Cross roles. This year, it raised almost $500,000 for Turkey earthquake relief, and it regularly sends chests of school supplies and personal items to war-ravaged areas such as Bosnia and Kosovo.

"Demand for our services in the community is growing substantially. We assisted 411,000 people this year," Bertram said. "We expect that need to increase with our growing metropolitan area."

Two who will contribute this year are Kati and John Scheibl.

"It's kind of a way to say thanks, and now you can help somebody else," John said.

December 20, 2000