He currently works with the Red Cross in community outreach and volunteer recruitment.

“We need more volunteers here. We could be a lot more active,” Anderson said, noting the reward for volunteering is gratification.

“The only pay you get is a good feeling. And that’s good enough,” he said.

The Red Cross chapter serving western North Dakota has about 60 active volunteers, according to Zoe Wergeland Manstrom, executive director of the chapter that encompasses 26 counties, including the Minot and Bismarck areas and two tribal nations.

Red Cross volunteer Heidi Super stands next to racks of emergency supplies at the Red Cross headquarters in Minot Dec. 17.

“In Western Dakota, 95 percent of our workforce is volunteers. We only have two staff members,” Wergeland Manstrom said. “So, they’re absolutely crucial and wonderful and just a great group of people. We rely on them entirely. They are the Red Cross.”

People can find a list of volunteer opportunities in their area on the Red Cross website or call the chapter office at 368-4035. Wergeland Manstrom said people can choose positions that fit their interests or professional skills, whether they want to work with military services, disaster response, general activities or even to provide assistance remotely. Once involved, if they see different areas where they want to help, they can always transition, she said.

Heidi Super of Minot, a new volunteer who joined in October 2024, recalled how the Red Cross came with cleaning supplies and food when her family was recovering from the 2011 flood.

“It was such a time of feeling alone – like you were alone in your recovery – that any organization that reached out sort of unsolicited was so comforting,” she said.

“The other thing that prompted me to volunteer was all the hurricanes of 2024,” she added. “I wondered if I could be of help in that kind of situation. My thought was that I wanted to deploy and go somewhere and help physically in a disaster.”

Her focus changed when she was asked to become part of a Disaster Action Team to assist local residents impacted by home fires. The team collects information from fire victims so they can obtain Red Cross assistance and assignment to a caseworker. She also installs smoke detectors for individuals who request home evaluations and detectors from the Red Cross.

Some of her volunteer work is face-to-face but much of it is virtual because often the need for help exceeds volunteer availability in other states in the region, Super said.

Vickie Phippins of Minot saw disaster first hand when she assisted her daughter with her flooded home in Minot in 2011. Phippins began volunteering in the disaster response efforts of the Red Cross in 2017.

“I’m part of the Disaster Action Team. We help local families cope with emergencies, and I do a lot of damage assessments,” she said.

She also has been deployed 14 times since 2018 in the aftermath of fires, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters around the country.

Phippins has worked with the Red Cross in North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Florida, Louisiana, Wisconsin and Texas. She traveled to Hawaii to aid residents following the Maui wildfires in 2023 and most recently went to Bemidji, Minnesota, where tornado-like winds did damage.

Phippins also has installed home smoke detectors and conducted intakes with fire victims.

“Our primary thing is giving them comfort kits,” Phippins said. “We get quilts donated from organizations and people, which is awesome. … A quilt to somebody that’s lost everything is wonderful. So, we really appreciate those donations.”

Phippins said she’s learned a lot about disaster response through her Red Cross training and observing the organization’s coordinated responses, with immediate needs as its main priority.

It takes a special type of volunteer to devote themselves to disaster response.

“It can be really hard on the heart,” Phippins said of the emotional impact. Volunteering also is rewarding, though.

“You get satisfaction with every volunteer experience. I think it’s just something God wanted me to do,” Phippins said. “When you go on a deployment, you meet and become really good friends with some of the people you work with by the end of two weeks. I’ve got some great friends.”

“I find it really satisfying to help people, sort of one on one, after their disasters,” Super said. “I feel like I don’t need to deploy to be helpful. That was kind of something that was a surprise to me. There’s enough to do here.”