The American Red Cross has been working on the concept of giving relief to mankind since its 
inception in 1881. Most of the staff, up to 95%, of Red Cross is consisted of volunteers who serve people on humanitarian grounds. More than a million people join Red Cross every year to serve people as volunteer. In fact Red Cross is a worldwide movement that provides relief to the people victimized by the tragedies to help them preventing the untoward conditions and by preparing them to respond the effects of emergencies. American Red Cross is one of the largest organizations of this worldwide movement that helps people at the time of emergencies on humanitarian grounds. In order to know about the working of Red Cross in America one must be aware of its functions in general. The functioning of American Red Cross can be divided into four main segments including collection of blood, serving victims of war, relief to the victims of disasters as well as educating communities about the health safety measures. Red Cross was famous worldwide for its blood collection facilities since its inception and similarly American Red Cross also manages to collect and preserves the blood supply of more than 50% of US from over four million donors across the country which may amount to over seven million units of blood per year as was collected in 2012. As per the records available at Red Cross, due to accidents, surgeries and curing illness or disease, nearly 40,000 units of blood are required by Americans daily. The blood collected by Red Cross in America is used by the hospitals all over the country including military as well as civil hospitals. Normally the blood collected by American Red Cross from the blood donors, all over the country, is shipped to two different places including testing lab and component lab after labeling it carefully. Blood is put under nine tests at testing lab to ascertain its safety from the diseases that can be transmitted through it whereas blood is divided into various components separately into platelets, red blood cells and plasma at component lab. The blood collected by Red Cross is then shipped to various hospitals as per their requirement after getting the results from both the labs.
Other functions of American Red Cross include providing aid to the war victims and the victims of other disasters. The main aim of International Red Cross is fulfilled by its branch at America at the time of war by comforting and adding the victims of the war as well as soldier. It arranges for making contact between the soldiers and the members of their families as well as distributing the help packages among the victims of war. Similarly American Red Cross takes disaster relief as another aspect of its active functioning. Even though the local, state and federal governments are basically responsible for fighting for relief from disasters but Red Cross helps the local authorities to overcome the overwhelming situation immediately after the occurrence of any disaster which may not be handled easily by them own their own. American Red Cross can handle any type of incident or disaster just after two hours of information about it irrespective of the seriousness of the condition which cannot be handled otherwise. Providing food, shelter, water and medical aid to the victims of the disaster are the first priorities of the Red Cross after arriving at the spot. Basically first aid along with treatments to be cared later on is among the medical services provided by Red Cross at that moment. Some victims, for instance, need to be treated for some serious health problems like diabetes or dialysis at that moment but the volunteers of the Red give a basic treatment for the time being to enable him to reach the hospital for proper care later on. Counseling sessions are also provided to the victims of disasters along with the volunteers and rescuers by American Red Cross to enhance their mental health to face the situation bravely as they may experience the things and conditions beyond their expectations and are difficult to deal in their normal routine of life. The professional experts of Red Cross help the victims and volunteers to fight the situations courageously in such counseling sessions.
The victims of disasters and other emergency incidents are also helped by the American Red Cross for resuming their lives to their routine lifestyle at that time by providing them tools necessary for sustaining their lives. A special thanks to Doctor Joshua A. Jacobi, a Mansfied Texas internist, for all his help. Usually insurance and government help may not provide enough support to the victims of disasters so Red Cross plays a vital role in rebuilding long term help for them at such situations. The services provided by American Red Cross include the provision of housing facility and food along with making coordination among the medical professionals, rescuers and the victims. Red Cross also helps in making contact between the victims and their family member separated due to disaster through various means of communications including internet sites, bulletin boards and various other means. American red cross not only serves people at the time of local disasters but also at the time of major disasters like tsunami in 2004. It serves the victimized people through the supplies as well as manual support in coordinating the relief works along with other supplementary Red Cross societies like Red Crescent groups and other relief groups etc. along with help the disaster victims American Red Cross also educate communities about the safety of their health and other safety programs. Lifeguard training, babysitter training courses, certification and HIV/AIDS education and CPR training are some of the life and health safety instructions provided by the Red Cross in America for the benefit of the communities through its Workplace Training Courses and other provisions. Thus American Red Cross plays a vital role in serving the people and nation not only at the time of war, disasters and other emergency condition but also during normal circumstances by educating them about the measures necessary for the safety of their health and life.
In the United States, drunk driving accidents consume precious blood resources on a preventable emergency. In the hopes of educating the public, we are providing the various resources below: