Red Cross celebrates 90 years in Lee County
BY MICHELLE _L. _START Florida Weekly Correspondent

It was 1918, World War I had just begun and nurses were needed when the Lee County chapter of the American Red Cross formed. Today, the chapter is celebrating its 90th birthday while the nationwide organization is celebrating 125 years.

The first offices in Lee were opened in space donated on First Street in downtown Fort Myers some 35 years after Clara Barton and a circle of acquaintances heard about the Swissinspired International Red Cross movement while visiting Europe during the Civil War.

The focus of the American organization was to provide military support and while that has continued, the chapters have also taken on the role of disaster preparation and recovery.

When the Lee County chapter formed, the organization was still in its infancy. In 1914, just before World War I began, there were some 107 chapters nationwide but that number jumped to 3,864 by 1918. The public contributed $400 million in funds and material to support Red Cross programs, including those for American and Allied forces and civilian refugees. The Red Cross staffed hospitals and ambulance companies and recruited 20,000 registered nurses to serve the military.

When the worldwide Spanish flu erupted in 1918, additional nurses stepped forward to help treat the ill. The American Red Cross reported that more than 200 of those nurses succumbed to the influenza while treating patients.

"Did we provide support (here)? More than likely," said Heidi Ruster, executive director of the American Red Cross of Lee County.

After the war, the Red Cross focused on service to veterans and enhanced its programs in safety training, accident prevention, home care for the sick and nutrition education. It also provided relief for victims of such major disasters as the Mississippi River floods in 1927 and severe drought and the Depression during the 1930s.

At the time, the national organization was trying to raise $10,000 for drought relief. The Lee County chapter was asked to contribute $1,400, according to newspaper articles from the time.

"There was a lot of focus on fundraising in the late 1920s to the early 1940s and the organization felt we did not have enough support for a national campaign," said Ruster. "Mrs. Mina Edison got involved with the Red Cross to make sure the drought had some support from Fort Myers. They had a birthday cake for Mr. (Thomas) Edison and sold pieces as a fundraiser."

banking Red Cross recruiting posters throughout the years.

It was not the first time the Edisons became involved with the organization. In 1910, Edison made a movie to raise awareness of the tuberculosis and support for the American Red Cross¿ Christmas seal stamp.

"That was a big issue at the time," Ruster said.

In 1928, when a Category 5 hurricane struck Southwest Florida and killed more than 2,500 people along Lake Okeechobee, the Florida chapters went into disaster response mode.

Many of the survivors and bodies were washed into the Everglades and were never found after lake water breached the levees and floodwater persisted for several weeks. The flood waters washed many homes off their foundations and caused an estimated $25 million in damage.

The American Red Cross was also called in when Hurricanes Donna, Charley and Wilma passed through Lee County.

By World War II, the Red Cross was again focused on military support. Nationwide, some 104,000 nurses were enrolled in the program. They prepared 27 million packages for American and Allied prisoners of war, and shipped more than 300,000 tons of supplies overseas. At the military's request, the Red Cross also initiated a national blood program that collected 13.3 million pints of blood for use by the armed forces.

In Fort Myers, where there was a military presence at both Buckingham and Page Fields, volunteers helped with the motor pool, gathered supplies for soldiers and helped to write letters. Local nurses were also sent to the front lines through the Red Cross to care for injured soldiers.

After World War II, the Red Cross introduced the first nationwide civilian blood program that now supplies nearly 50 percent of the blood and blood products in this country. The Red Cross expanded its role in biomedical research and entered the new field of human tissue

banking and distribution. During

the 1990s, it engineered a massive modernization of its blood services operations to improve the safety of its blood products. It continued to provide services to members of the armed forces and their families, including during the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf wars. The Red Cross also expanded its services into such fields as civil defense, CPR/AED training, HIV/AIDS education, and the provision of emotional care and support to disaster victims and their survivors. It helped the federal government form the Federal Emergency Management Agency and serves as its principal supplier of mass care in federally declared disasters.

Today, the American Red Cross of Lee County does everything from helping bring soldiers home on emergency leave to caring for families displaced by fires. From Jan. 1 to May 31, the American Red Cross had helped 115 families (400 individuals) following house fires and provided refreshments at 15 disaster events to support more than 500 firefighters.

Ruster said the chapter raised $1,050,000 locally to meet local needs and of that only 9 percent is for administrative costs.

The chapter has 309 volunteers and eight staff members.