Volunteers Anne Slowley and Cora Lee Findley, right, worked at the Baby and Mother Resource Center located at Fort Bliss Doña Ana Range Complex in New Mexico. They sorted and distributed formula, diapers and other critical items for mothers and their babies.
Idaho Red Cross volunteer Cora Lee Findley never dreamed the gift of a single banana could leave such a lasting impression but that’s what happened on a recent deployment near Chaparral, N.M., to help Afghan evacuees.
In September, Cora Lee and her husband Jim spent two weeks at the Doña Ana Range Complex, a dusty, windy military training site not far from Fort Bliss. There a village of 100 tents housed about 10,000 Afghans who had evacuated from their country during the U.S. military withdrawal.
At the request of the Department of Defense, the American Red Cross helped provide temporarily care for evacuees sheltered at military sites across the country. Many of the refugees are U.S. citizens or supported U.S. troops in Afghanistan and left their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs.
“A lot these people had been more than two weeks in the clothes they arrived in, so they were pretty desperate,” Jim said.
Cora Lee supervised the camp’s baby center, which distributed items like diapers, wipes and formula, and also oversaw the shoe resource center. Jim spent much of his time traveling through the camp via truck distributing clothing.
Idaho Red Cross volunteer Jim Findley worked with service members to load a truck with much-needed supplies for Afghan evacuees.
The majority of those items had been donated, and supply often could not keep up with demand.
People began lining up at the shoe resource center at 4 in the morning, even though it didn’t open until 9. Inside, the shoes were sorted in boxes by size, sometimes with only 20 pairs of the most popular sizes available.
“In the first hour the shoes would all go and then we would have to close,” Cora Lee said.
The refugees became so desperate they began to rush the door, and extra military personnel were brought in to control the crowds.
“This is for a pair of used shoes,” Cora Lee said. “This is how desperate these people are for something.”
As word got out about the tremendous need, more donations began to roll in. Volunteers called home asking their local churches to organize shoe drives. A professional runner, Jim and Cora Lee’s daughter used the equipment allowance provided by her sponsor to buy 32 pairs of new shoes for the camp.
One man even drove all the way from Illinois with 1,200 pairs of shoes in the back of his pickup, sorted and ready to distribute.
Early in her deployment, Cora Lee identified another pressing need and worked tirelessly to fill it. Parents of youngsters between the ages 2 and 5 were asking for milk to help relax their children at night. But with a lack of refrigeration that wasn’t possible.
When they were younger, Cora Lee and Jim had spent 15 years living in the Middle East where they had come across a long-life milk product that didn’t require refrigeration. Cora Lee began talking with people at Doña Ana about it, but they either hadn’t heard of it or knew where to get it.
“Eventually I figured if I talked to enough people somebody’s going to have something,” Cora Lee said.
Sure enough, someone from Armed Services YMCA came in one day and asked Cora Lee if there was a need that wasn’t being filled. Cora Lee explained what she was looking for, and the woman said they had just received three pallets of this milk product and they didn’t know what to do with it.
“She brought all three pallets over, and we made so many families so happy with this simple product, and I just felt good about that,” Cora Lee said. “I felt like I had made a difference.”
But it was something that one of the evacuees gave to her that will stick with Cora Lee the longest.
Many of the refugees coming to the baby resource center spoke Dari or Farsi, but the interpreter provided by the military spoke only Pashtun. That military interpreter said she knew someone who could help if Cora Lee would accompany her.
The two made their way across camp and to the tent of the new interpreter. As they were preparing to leave, the original military interpreter ran back to her own tent and came out with a single banana.
“This is for you. Please take this, it’s all I can offer,” she told Cora Lee.
Cora Lee was blown away.
“Here are these people who have nothing, but they cannot have me go into their tent without offering me something. The day could not get better after that.”
This was the Findleys’ third Red Cross deployment together. In March, the Boise couple traveled to Dallas where they helped provide comfort and care to 2,500 unaccompanied minors sheltered at the Dallas Convention Center. Two years earlier, they volunteered in southeast Texas following Tropical Storm Imelda.
“I’m retired and I just want to get some value out of my time by helping others,” Jim said.
“To me, I feel somewhat selfish when I volunteer because I get so much out of it,” Cora Lee said. “I feel like I have a whole heart, and I’ve gained so much.”
BECOME A RED CROSS VOLUNTEER
The American Red Cross offers volunteer opportunities for almost any interest and skillset. Training is provided and the payoff is priceless. Learn more by emailing IDMT.Recruiting@redcross.org, calling 406-493-8778 or visiting redcross.org/volunteer.
