Palm Beach Area Red Cross recognized for tracing efforts

By Palm Beach Business.com

WEST PALM BEACH — The International Holocaust and War Tracing center of the Red Cross has announced that the Greater Palm Beach Area Chapter will receive the Outstanding Chapter Award for the work of chapter volunteers in their community outreach programs. The Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center, based in Maryland, is a national clearinghouse for persons seeking the fates of loved ones missing since the Holocaust and its aftermath.

Last November, some 29 Red Cross volunteers representing Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties engaged various Jewish communities, agencies and volunteers with educational outreach programs.  During a 72-hour period, the Red Cross team met with almost 1,000 people with the goal of connecting family members by telling the stories of people who were lost and reunited during the Holocaust and its aftermath. 

The meeting resulted in 61 new requests to the Tracing Center in Baltimore. Of the people touched by this outreach effort, 18% identified themselves as Holocaust Survivors. 

“Besides the number of cases initiated as a result of the chapter’s work, the campaign allowed us to directly reach more people in a condensed period of time,” said Linda Klein, director of the Red Cross Holocaust & War Victims Tracing Center. “It is a wonderful model, well thought out and executed, with the full support of the chapter’s leadership, staff and volunteers.”

The Greater Palm Beach Area Chapter was also able to develop and train 29 new holocaust tracing volunteers.

The Outstanding Chapter Award will be presented to volunteer leaders from the Greater Palm Beach Chapter at a luncheon celebrating the tracing center’s 20th anniversary in Baltimore, on Sept. 27, featuring keynote speaker Gail McGovern, president and CEO of the American Red Cross. For more information on free American Red Cross Holocaust Tracing or the upcoming anniversary luncheon, call 561.833.7711 or visit www.redcross-pbc.org.