SAINT MARY’S HALL RED CROSS CLUB

The Saint Mary’s Hall Red Cross Club exists for the purpose of nurturing servant leaders while serving the greater good of the community. The club is comprised of high school students attending a demanding college preparatory program. All volunteer activities are completed without pay.

The activities of the club include traditional activities of the American Red Cross such as staffing First Aid and water stations, compiling comfort kits for disaster victims, and conducting fundraisers for hurricane victims in Florida. Other events include activities such as the fund raising for the Measles Initiative and providing safety education and training. In addition, the student volunteers of the Saint Mary’s Hall Red Cross Club provide babysitting at the USO in support of families of whose military members are deployed overseas.

Every year, this club organizes the delivery of over one hundred meals for both Thanksgiving and Mothers Day to the needy senior citizens of the community. On these occasions, up to twenty students and half a dozen parents will support the Christian Senior Services of San Antonio for this special occasion delivery. Students in pairs will deliver to each for cards created by the city’s grade school children, flowers, and the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. The moments these students provide many senior citizens are the only company these people will receive during the holiday.

On the day after Thanksgiving, the volunteers of the Saint Mary’s Hall Red Cross Club meet on San Antonio’s famed Riverwalk to raise between $15,000 and $20,000 dollars in the annual Holiday River Parade. This event’s funds are used exclusively for the maintenance and improvements to the city’s tourist attraction. For this event, students set-up and number almost 2,000 chairs around the convention center lagoon. As spectators arrive, the students lead them to their seats. During the event, they provide assistance as required and after the event all the chairs are restacked and the area cleaned up from cups, programs, and associated debris.

The singularly distinguished actions of the Saint Mary’s Hall Red Cross Club are reflected in the success of their members to assume greater responsibilities. The club president is also the president of the Youth Council for the entire city of San Antonio. She also sits on the San Antonio Chapter of the American Red Cross Board of Directors that represents the 21 counties and seven million people of South Texas. Finally, the club president was awarded an opportunity to represent the chapter at the 2004 national convention of the American Red Cross in Saint Louis, Missouri.