PGA TOUR Gives Back: American Red Cross
Pete Schlicksup serves in a volunteer leadership role with American Red Cross and for the past 16 years has helped marshal hole #4 at the John Deere Classic along with his fellow Kiwanis members. As an avid golfer himself, Pete often volunteers every day of the tournament.
Just days prior to Hurricane Irma making landfall, Pete headed to Florida as part of the advance team for the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Effort. As Irma made landfall, Pete worked in an evacuation center, with extremely limited supplies and bathrooms for the nearly 700 people temporarily housed there.
After the hurricane hit, Pete worked long hours in a Red Cross shelter that offered cots, blankets, hot meals, bottled water, and comfort kits filled with personal hygiene items for hurricane-weary residents. Pete worked directly with those in the shelter—answering questions, sorting through mounds of donated items to outfit those who did not have time to pack a bag before leaving home and referring residents in need of health care and or other emergency services.
Pete Schlicksup is one of more than 60 volunteers from the local Quad City chapter who deployed to assist with the Red Cross hurricane relief efforts. Those deployed spent a minimum of two weeks on the ground, away from their families and the comforts of home—and some chose to stay longer or deploy more than once.
Volunteers constitute about 90% of the Red Cross workforce and thanks to the generosity of volunteers and donors—the Red Cross to able to respond quickly when there is a disaster—whether it is a home fire affecting one family or a hurricane, flood, wildfire or other disaster impacting an entire community or region.