| American Red Cross Bestows 2 National Lifesaving Awards at Annual Meeting and Awards Recognition. | |
About 75 volunteers, community leaders, donors and employees attended the Greater Lehigh Valley Red Cross Annual Meeting and Awards Recognition held this evening (9/21) at Allentown Symphony Hall.
Award highlights included presentation of two of the highest national lifesaving awards given by the American Red Cross: the Certificate of Merit and the Lifesaving Award for the Professional Responder.
Gretchen Stoudt, 22, of Nazareth received the American Red Cross Certificate of Merit, which bears the signature of the president of the United States and the signature of the chairman of the American Red Cross.
Stoudt, trained in American Red Cross Babysitters' Training, helped save the life of her mother by applying abdominal thrusts to dislodge a piece of food that was blocking her mother's airway last Thanksgiving. While at a restaurant eating Thanksgiving dinner, her mother, Peggy, took a drink of water and it would not go down. She tried to breathe and could not get any air in.
She turned to her daughter and motioned for her to start abdominal thrusts. Gretchen calmly got up from her seat, walked over to her mother and administered abdominal thrusts and the object was dislodged.
This was not the first lifesaving event for mother and daughter. When Gretchen was about a year old, she grabbed a branch from a Norfolk Pine at home and tried to eat it while her mother was downstairs doing laundry. As Peggy walked back upstairs, she noticed Gretchen was at the top of the stairs in her walker, clearly in distress. Peggy quickly applied abdominal thrusts and dislodged the piece of plant blocking her airway.
Michelle Adams, 45, of Allentown received the American Red Cross Lifesaving Award for the Professional Responder which bears the signatures of the president and CEO of the American Red Cross and chairman of the American Red Cross.
Adams, program assistant at LifePath in Bethlehem, is credited for helping to save the life of a 27-year-old day program resident who was choking on a piece of candy last December. Adams performed abdominal thrusts and, after three attempts, the candy was finally dislodged.
"While it was an emotional situation," Adams says, "I knew exactly what to do. It comes naturally from having the training each year at the Red Cross. I took it all in stride … as part of my job."
Other awards presented included: The Good Neighbor Award, given to local businesses, corporations and agencies that have provided significant, ongoing support to the Red Cross. Air Products and Chemicals, PPL Corporation and Wegmans received this year's awards.
Cedar Crest College received the Workplace Recognition Award for their commitment to provide Red Cross training in lifesaving skills to their employees and students and for their Red Cross aquatics programs for the community.
The Tiffany Award for Employee Excellence, in recognition of superior job performance demonstrated by an employee of the American Red Cross, was presented to Ana Vega of Allentown.
During the business portion of the meeting, Chairman Bob McGovern recognized six outgoing board members for their contributions to the Red Cross: Terry Capuano, Lehigh Valley Hospital; Jon Conrad, Moravian College; Jim Harper, Lehigh University; Bob Kopecek, community volunteer; Tyrone Reed, Alvin H. Butz; and Dhwani Pandya, 2006 Parkland High School graduate.
Board members elected for a second, three-year term: Thomas Brown, vice president and CFO at The Morning Call; Dona Fisher, vice president and chief financial officer at Binney & Smith; George Hlavac, attorney at Tallman, Hudders & Sorrentino; and Dawn Washington, director-Ways to Work Family Loan Program.
In addition, the following individuals were elected to the board for their first, three-year term: Fred Bañuelos, president and chief executive officer of Alliance for Building Communities; Desty Bonstein, vice president at Embassy Bank; Jim Dunleavy, vice president of finance and operations at Northampton Community College; Vaughn Gower, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network; Bob Grim, vice president of customer service at Capital BlueCross; Al Haddad, senior vice president at Morgan Stanley; Joe Lennert, senior vice president at Caruso Benefits Group; and Anne Speck, vice president of human services at Muhlenberg College.
Vivek Ananthan, Parkland High School senior, and Lizzy Stoner, Emmaus High School sophomore, were elected Red Cross youth board members.
Officers elected for 2006-2007: Bob McGovern, chapter chair; George Hlavac, vice chair; John Yanek, secretary; and Thomas Brown, treasurer.
The American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley serves more than 660,000
residents of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties. Last year the Red Cross
provided health and safety education training; Lifeline, a personal response
service for seniors; and emergency relief to more than 20,000 Greater Lehigh
Valley residents. For more information about the American Red Cross of the
Greater Lehigh Valley or volunteer opportunities, call (610) 865-4400 or visit
www.redcrosslv.org.