LAFAYETTE PARK : Quake Volunteer Force 5,000 Strong

Almost as soon as the shaking stopped Jan. 17, volunteers began calling the Red Cross to offer assistance. Some came from as far away as Virginia and Florida, but most volunteers live nearby and felt the earthquake themselves.

“They were all shook up too, but they knew someone somewhere was in need of help,” said Priscilla Schoch, the local disaster volunteer officer in charge of the American Red Cross’s volunteer effort. “That’s the bottom line with volunteers: They all want to help and they wear their hearts on their sleeve.”

Working out of temporary office space set up at 672 Lafayette Park Place, just around the corner from the Los Angeles chapter of the American Red Cross, Schoch is coordinating a volunteer force that has reached nearly 5,000.

“It looked like a train station here the first couple of days,” said Schoch, who ordinarily works with the Orange County chapter. But before long, most of the volunteers had fanned out to the service centers set up throughout the impacted area.

After giving the volunteers some basic training, Schoch assigned them to manage shelters, drive shuttles, cook and distribute food, assist with damage assessments, help case workers interview victims, translate, answer phones and operate computers and faxes.

“There isn’t anything that volunteers wouldn’t be doing,” said Schoch, who was on the verge of losing her voice. “There’s a role for everyone.”

In the Red Cross hot line room the phones ring nonstop, and shelter addresses, emergency numbers and procedural information are written on poster paper and taped to the walls.

“It’s really intense here,” said hot line volunteer Mary Moline. “There are thousands of calls. This is the nerve center where people tap into the system for the first time.”

Two weeks after the earthquake, many callers were still looking for help, their nerves frayed. A small sampling of calls found people without food, a home or a job, people who had lost their medicine or needed to replace crushed eyeglasses. One caller said he felt like killing himself, but volunteers assured him that help was available.

Most hot line callers are instructed to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency at (800) 462-9029 to register for an appointment with a counselor who can help clients get vouchers for food, rent, clothing, medicine and other needs.

“I’m trained to deal with oil spills,” said hot line volunteer Richard R. Habrat, an engineer with the U.S. Department of the Interior. “But this job is really demanding, physically and mentally. People have so many tough questions and you have to know where to send them to get help.”

Habrat’s supervisors freed him up for five days to work on the hot line. He is coveted for his knowledge of several languages, including Polish, Russian and German.

“One lady who was (originally) from Armenia called and we spoke in Russian even though it wasn’t her first language,” Habrat said.

Volunteers, especially bilingual ones, will be needed every day until the relief effort is completed, Schoch said. She urged English-speakers who also who speak Armenian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese or Spanish and those who know sign language to volunteer as translators.

A few professional translators from the Omni Interpreting and Translating Network in Westlake Village donated their services for a couple of days when the courts were not in session. “They told me it was the most gratifying experience they had had in months,” said company president Georges Ulmer.

For information on Red Cross volunteer training: (213) 739-5666.