By Mel Rubenstein
With so many natural disasters the past couple of years, and seeing so many mentions in the media about what the Red Cross volunteers have done, I was motivated to feature one of their volunteers in this column.
It wasn’t long before Suzann Hensley, the Volunteer Services Specialist of the CNY Chapter of the Red Cross, responded with the name of Mark Paikin and said, “He recently returned from deployment in response to the hurricanes in Texas. Thank you for the opportunity to recognize one of our finest.”
Mark Paikin is a native Syracusan, attended Nottingham High School, and went to Wilkes University where he majored in Political Science. He then returned to Syracuse University for graduate studies and received a degree in Educational Counseling.
Paikin took advantage of his education and went to work for the New York State Department of Labor as a counselor to single parents who needed direction regarding education, careers, job seeking skills or had mental health referral needs. His work was done both with individuals and groups.
After a while the federal government cut back funding to the states for these programs. Paikin said, “Without the necessary funding it became very problematic how effective I could be and saw that the program was no longer working. Sadly, I decided to leave.”
Soon, a friend knowing that Mark was looking elsewhere, told him that there were positions open at CIBA, a Swiss pharmaceutical company (which is now Novartis). Mark accepted a position in sales, training, and marketing. He was involved in most medical specialties but spent the last half of his 30 years exclusively in Oncology until his early retirement.
When Mark Paikin retired he realized how fortunate he was, and wanted to give back to the community. With all of the publicity about what the Red Cross was doing during Hurricane Sandy, he arranged for an interview to be a volunteer for the CNY Chapter of the American Red Cross Disaster segment.
Because of his training and background, it was suggested he specialize in “Staff Relations.” In that position, Paikin’s responsibility was to try and resolve, adjudicate, or offer advice regarding problems/issues that volunteers had while deployed at various disasters. It was all about making their lives better so that they could, in turn, better help those who were affected by the disaster.
Mark Paikin then became a national level “Staff Advocate” for the American Red Cross, and was responsible for overseeing the general welfare of the workforce during deployment to a large scale disaster anywhere in the country.
In that role, Paikin responded directly to the Director of Disaster Response. For example, if there was a large group of volunteers deployed to a disaster area, Paikin had to attend to their morale and overall welfare.
Before he knew it, on came Hurricane Sandy, and Mark, representing Staff Relations, was deployed to the headquarters of the Long Island Red Cross. After spending the better part of two weeks there, he was transferred to the Red Cross headquarters in Manhattan. Paikin said, “It was hard to believe what a large area Sandy affected. What would have happened to all those people if the Red Cross was not there to help?”
Paikin explained, “There are seven classifications of Red Cross disasters, with seven being the worst. From 2012 – 2016 there were two tiered seven disasters, but in 2017 alone there were four. This was especially devastating because most of them were in very populous areas.” Some storms are spread out into less populated areas, but can be just as horrific to the residents.
Following is an excerpt from Mark Paikin’s published report about one of those times.
“In 2013 flooding devastated Colorado in mid-September and the call went out for specialized volunteers from the Central New York Region of the American Red Cross. On Sept. 18th, I left Syracuse and traveled to Denver, Colorado to help out in the Northern Colorado flood area. My first observation was the devastation of flooded fields everywhere.”
“In some of these newly formed lakes were the remnants of a cattle herd. The scope of this Disaster Relief Operation was so different from Superstorm Sandy. This was a relatively small affected population, but spread over a large geographic area. Over 18,000 homes were either destroyed or damaged.”
“This was a learning opportunity for me to work with so many of our partner organizations who came to Colorado to help. Perhaps the most rewarding moments for me came when I had the opportunity to do outreach with FEMA Corps, AmeriCorps, and the Red Cross teams, which were tasked to go out and find folks who had fallen through the cracks. I can’t say enough about the young women and men from these organizations.”
Paikin most recently returned from a 17-day deployment to St. Croix and St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands where hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the area.
While the Red Cross responds to severe hurricanes that are wide spread and devastating, and receive much publicity, most of the time it is about volunteers responding to local fires where they provide health and mental care, housing, meals and other services.
As a Staff Advocate, Mark Paikin says; “It’s not what I know that bothers me, it’s what I don’t know that bothers me the most. Sometimes I don’t know what is happening to our volunteers at a disaster site until it’s too late for me to help.”
When asked what his biggest concern is, Mark said; “Our biggest challenge is that we never have enough people. How much more could we do if we had more people?” That is why Paikin was instrumental in beginning a mentoring program for the local Red Cross.
Mentors are assigned to new volunteers to teach them what to expect and what is expected from them. That encourages confidence and results in more people wanting to remain volunteers in this organization.
It is hard to imagine where he finds the time, but Paikin also participates in a New York State mentoring program for elementary school children who could benefit from a support system or role model.
He is assigned one child at a time from the County School System. He also is on a regional
committee for that program in an attempt to help always improve and build it further so that more children can be reached. Again, they need more people willing to be mentors to the children.
Mark Paikin enjoys reading and traveling, and lives in Fayetteville.
For volunteer information for the Red Cross contact Suzann Hensley at: (315) 234-2217 or email Hensley at [email protected] .
To recommend someone with a stellar record of volunteering to be featured in this column contact Mel Rubenstein: [email protected] or 315-682- 7162.
