At 7:30 a.m. one cold morning, Red Cross volunteer James Yan was paged to go to a two-alarm blaze in Chinatown.  He grabbed his bike and sped 180 blocks to the scene. “I realized it would take me too long to take the bus all the way down,” James said, “so I rode my bike instead.”

James is just one of more than 30 trained Public Affairs (PA) volunteers who help the Media Relations department of the American Red Cross in Greater New York. PA volunteers are on call about once a month from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. to hurry to disaster scenes when needed and give information and relevant facts to reporters.

In the case of the Chinatown fire, James knew that many of the local residents would need translation services. “Two of the families didn’t speak English, so I helped translate for them and let the Red Cross know what their concerns were,” he said. James, who is originally from China, has lived in North America for 10 years. He helps Chinese families bridge some of the cultural differences and understand the Red Cross services available. “When I explained that the Red Cross would put them up in a hotel, one elderly woman was worried about who would pay for it. When I assured her that the Red Cross was taking care of that, it put her mind at ease. In China, there are no organizations to help people after a disaster, so they weren’t familiar with the concept of an organization that would help them like this.”

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