A Year of Crisis

This has been a year of crisis — both seen and unseen — for families and communities.

The big crises we’ve seen on TV included extreme climate disasters such as Hurricane Ian, severe floods in Kentucky, and wildfires throughout California; the ongoing conflict in Ukraine; and the first-ever national American Red Cross blood crisis in January 2022.

But there were personal crises too — unseen to many beyond those experiencing them: an apartment fire in Santa Maria displacing more than 20 families, the person who needed CPR during a cardiac arrest, the family who needed to contact a deployed service member during an emergency, and the hospital patient who needed a lifesaving blood transfusion.