Relief Workers Find Reward in Hard Work

While the nation has been riveted to the television set watching Mother Nature unleash her fury this winter, American Red Cross workers Frank Glorioso and Pat Gise rolled up their sleeves and pitched in with relief efforts in the West Pacific, where Typhoon Keith tore through the island of Saipan in November, destroying or damaging more than 700 homes and disrupting countless lives.

Glorioso, a five-year veteran of the relief organization, recalls sitting on the beach in Saipan on Thanksgiving Day, gazing past the tikis into the tropical sunset as he sank his teeth into a turkey dinner prepared especially for the American workers.

The surreal experience, which he chuckles about now, was a relief after living through Keith’s destructive forces earlier that month in Guam. It allowed him to reflect on why he spends nearly every holiday away from home, often up to his knees in water while he establishes telephone lines and other vital services to the victims of floods and hurricanes.

“Going into these places, we bring compassion,” the 43-year-old communications expert said. “And you get to see how communities pull together and work together.”

Gise echoed that sentiment.

“I’ve learned that good comes out of every disaster. It’s hard to see in the moment, but we know that down the road, it will happen. The community comes out better for it.”

And it doesn’t seem to hurt the relief workers either.

Glorioso, a New Jersey native who earned a business degree from New York University in 1976, first got involved with the Red Cross in 1992, after having spent a stint with the disaster-response unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The first major Red Cross assignment for the Agoura Hills resident, who owns a communications business, was in Northern California where he helped clean up after the 1994 floods. Dozens of trips followed to far-flung locations, from Guam to the mountains of West Virginia.

“It’s hard to see communities fight the battle, but lose the war,” Glorioso said of his experience in Fargo, N.D., where the Red River wreaked havoc on towns along its banks last year. “It’s always worth the effort, though.”

Gise has earned her Red Cross stripes as well. The 66-year-old Granada Hills resident joined the relief agency in 1979 after she and her husband, Richard, had logged many hours as volunteers with a citizens-band radio emergency program.

She got hooked on relief work after her first Red Cross emergency response--to the North Dakota floods in May 1979--where she spent six weeks helping residents and fellow workers shore up dikes and assisted with providing food, shelter and medical aid to the displaced.

The family services specialist has since assisted at about 50 local and 50 national disasters, many in the Caribbean and South Pacific. The rewards, said Gise, outweigh the hardships.

“People like Pat and Frank, who’ve helped at disasters so many times, they’re so dedicated and willing to serve,” said Mike Powers of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Red Cross. “Experienced people like that are a gift. We wish we had more like them.”