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Minnesota Volunteer Hailed for Leadership and Service
Aimee Cirucci, Special to RedCross.org
Wednesday, March 08, 2006 — ST. PAUL, Minn. – Lorraine Johnson's lifelong commitment to the Red Cross in many ways may have been predetermined. Her mother, a Red Cross nurse, met her father when he was recovering from wounds received in World War I. Their relationship resulted in not only a “Red Cross baby” but an ambitious lifelong volunteer who would have made her mother proud.
Lorraine Johnson, daughter of an American Red Cross nurse, has been a dedicated Red Cross volunteer for more than 60 years, working stints as a CPR instructor, a disaster relief volunteer and trainer, a water safety instructor and as both a chapter and blood drive chair for organization locally.
(Photo Credit: American Red Cross)
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Johnson began her Red Cross service as a young girl in the 1940s selling pins to raise money. In 1952, when the first bloodmobiles came to her county, she was on the front lines working the canteen and recruiting additional volunteers. Little could she know then that she would commit more than 60 years to Red Cross volunteer work.
Those around her saw Johnson’s potential early on. Johnson’s extensive volunteer history includes stints as a CPR instructor, water safety instructor, disaster relief volunteer and trainer. She quickly rose to Chapter Chair, a position she held from 1968 to 2001. Additionally, she served as the Blood Drive Chair for Pipestone County, Minn., and was, in the words of Blood Recruitment Representative Larry Wieser, "the driving force that kept the Pipestone chapter from folding."
Today, Johnson continues her commitment to the Red Cross as Blood Drive Coordinator and uses her personal persuasiveness and reputation as a community leader to ensure success. She currently manages and coordinates the recruitment of donors and volunteers who support the collection of more than 1,200 units of blood from her rural territory. She is a seven-gallon donor herself and donated regularly until medical necessity forced her to stop. With unwavering energy, she has recruited more than 500 new donors in just the past four years.
She has been called the "spiritual and inspirational glue" behind the blood program in Pipestone County and is credited with saving that chapter when its charter was in jeopardy. These are just some of the reasons the Red Cross awarded Lorraine Johnson with the national Cynthia Wedel Award in 2005.
This prestigious national award came on the heels of Johnson's 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the North Central Blood Services Region for her exemplary work. The Wedel Award recognizes volunteers who perform distinguished service for several years at any level in the American Red Cross. The award is designed especially for those whose outstanding efforts might otherwise go unrecognized, but whose work embodies the Red Cross mission and reflects its ideals.
Johnson’s dedication to humanitarian service is not limited to her Red Cross service either. She remains active as a Girl and Boy Scout leader, supports her community volunteer ambulance corps, and in what will undoubtedly be her most lasting legacy, has been a foster mother to 67 children.
Lorraine's impact is undeniable, in the last four years alone she has led the collection of enough blood to save or improve the quality of life for nearly 14,000 patients. Over her more than 60 years of service she has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. For this Red Cross baby it was a destiny more than fulfilled.
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