Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on the biggest issues in facting you this week. Here's many munhos and welcome to another edition of Iheartradios Communities. As you heard, I am Manny Muno's. As we kick off the month of March, we acknowledge some of the groups and issues that use this month to bring attention to certain things. One of them is the American Red Cross.
What they do, their mission, their history. Let's talk about all of that as we bring in Laurie Arnold with the Red Cross disaster relief team based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Laurie, I appreciate you sharing your time.
Thanks so much, Thanks so much for having me, Thanks for letting us talk about the Red Cross and all we do.
Yeah, so let me start off with that. What is the American Red Cross and what exactly is it that you do?
Well, the American Red Cross has been around since eighteen eighty one. We have a long history of working with our military members with collecting block and was responding to disaster and providing essential training for people to save lives. So that's us on a nutshell, and it's great that we're actually talking here at March because this is Red Cross Months.
How did March become a American Red Cross Month?
Well about eighty years ago. In nineteen forty three, to be exact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He issued the first presidential proclamation to declare March as a Red Cross Month. It was an effort to raise funds for aid during the Second World War. And every US president since it has followed suit and has claimed Red Cross or claimed March to be Red Cross Months every year.
What were the original I'm sorry to interrupt.
Go ahead, Oh no, no, I was going to say, it's a great opportunity for us to honor all the amazing Red Cross volunteers that we have, the blood donors and of course are financial supporters as well.
Have the original goals changed since the Red Cross was founded so long ago.
The original goals have not changed.
No.
Now, some of the details have changed, of course, but we really started out with Claire Barton on the battlefield supporting wounded soldiers. We've continued that tradition all the way through to today where we still have support for our military members. We actually provide the emergency communications for our military in the US and we continue that long history. She also immediately as soon as the Red Cross was formed,
began supporting during disaster time. So during floods and hurricanes, earthquakes, she was there and the Red Cross is there supporting those victims of those natural disasters. Shortly after actually was in around nineteen forty, we began the blood program, collecting blood. And the goal of the Red Cross has always been to alleviate human suffering in the face of emergency, to
prevent an alleviate human suffering. And so even though the detail has changed here and there, that has been our goal ever since eighteen eighty one.
And it feels like any time there is a natural disaster, some sort of public suffering, the Red Cross always seem to be like they're the first ones on the scene to help.
So, you know, that's what we're trained to do. You know, I work in the disaster side of things, and you know, right now we've got more than one hundred and fifty Red Cross volunteers and workers on the ground in Kentucky supporting the flooding that happened just a couple of weeks ago. So yes, that's something that we are trained to do. We're ready to do the open shelters, We provide feeding,
we give out emergency supply. We support people with their healthcare needs during the disaster, so i they've lost medication or any kind of medical equipment someh we else to support them with mental health and spiritual care as well, because we know that disasters affect all parts of us, not just the physical.
Yeah, talk to me about the many different ways that our listeners can help the Red Cross, because I know obviously financial donations, but also actually taking part themselves.
Definitely, there's so many ways that people can get involved in the Red Cross. As you mentioned financial support. You know, we're always looking for people to help because we are funded by the general public. But not everybody's able to do that. Some people want to actually get their hands involved and get involved themselves. So we encourage anyone who is interested to get involved as a volunteer. Call your
local chapter. We've got chapters all over the country in every single state able to engage you and help you learn what your interest is in the different ways that you can support with the Red Cross as a volunteer.
And then of course there's blood donations and in fact, in the munch of March, Mark in the months of March, all blood donors who make a successful blood or platelet donation will actually provide free will actually receive a free A one C screening, which is a test that's commonly used to identify diabetes and pre diabetes of the US. It's part of our health initiative. We want to offer that to people in the month of March if they to donate blood.
And the website for all the information on the Red Cross is Redcross dot org. Red Cross dot org. It seems like we mentioned the natural disaster, the response to those types of things. It seems like the blood donation, the blood collection is what Americans generally associate with the Red Cross these days.
That is true.
You know, anytime I speak to a group, I always ask what do you think of when you think of Red Cross, and immediately the answers are blood and disaster, and those things are true. We do support both of those places. But we also do health and safety training. So if you've ever taken a CPR class or a swimming class or lifeguarding, Red Cross offers that we offer. Of course, I mentioned the support to our military, the
emergency communications. Beyond that, we work in a lot of veterans Tones and VA hospitals to support those hospitalized veterans who have given to our country and we want to support them as they continue through their lives. And then of course we are part of a global Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, so we are part of that global network of dedicated people volunteers who want to help relieve human sufferings.
Difference between Red Cross and Red Crescent.
Very little difference other than the fact that, and this is a little bit of fun history for you, the American Red Cross was never a religious cross, but it's always been a very neutral organization. That is one of our seven fundamental principles is that we are neutral and partial and independent. But in some countries the Cross was still seen as potentially a religious emblem, and so the Red Crescent was also developed for some nations to use.
And then we also have a red crystal which is less used but still fits into the concepts so that if anyone does feel that there's a religious connotations that is removed.
You mentioned seven things. What are the seven things you just mentioned?
So our seven fundamental principles are humanity first. Obviously, that's what we are as a humanitarian organization, and we care about the humanity of the people we live with, and communalists, impartiality, neutrality, independence, all of those are a way of us being able to support everyone without any concern for their race, their religion, their creed, their political stance. All those things are not
important to us because we are here for humanity. And then we've got voluntary service, so we are made up of ninety percent volunteers unity. So we are a one or one Red Cross and every nation can only have one Red Cross or Red Crescent, and the final one is universality because we are a part of that global movement.
Speaking with Laurie Arnold with the Red Cross Disaster Relief Team about March being American Red Cross Month, you've mentioned volunteers. What role have volunteers played in shaping the American Red Cross over the years, because I imagine you couldn't do any of the things you do without their help.
That is one hundred percent true. As I said before, we are ninety percent workforce volunteer. We use volunteers for literally everything. Our volunteers are the ones who are out on the ground during a disaster, so are the ones who are planning our Blood drives and helping those blood drives get set up in different places. Our volunteers are the ones in the VA hospitals, are the ones who
are helping with those emergency communications. They're doing everything from casework for the people that we're serving to raising awareness about the Red Cross out in the community. They're behind the scenes helping keep our facilities running. Everything you can think of. We're using volunteers to do that because everyone has a different skill set, and we can use your skill set almost regardless of what it is. We have a place for you the Red Cross.
How do you work with government, because especially on disaster response, you don't want to get in the way of the initial government response, whether it's state or federal, but you also want to be able to be there to assist in how that response is taking place.
Certainly, so I'll mention again that you know, one of our seven seven fundamental principles is independent, so we are not a part of any government, but they are our partners. They do great work and we're trying to help them do what they need to do. So we work right
alongside FEMA and our local emergency management. We have contant communication with our local emergency management management, either a county or a parish, wherever you live in the country, to make sure that we are collaborating, coordinating, and not duplicating efforts. It's incredibly important that they are able to do the work they need to do, We're able to do the work that we do, and that together we're making that mesh perfectly. Does it happen perfectly every time? Probably not,
but that is the goal. Well is to work alongside all of the government and other nonprofits, But I want to forget about them too. Sure takes a village to do disaster relief, to do humanitarian work, and if it weren't for our government partners, our nonprofit partners, our donors, our volunteers, none of this could be possible.
I wanted to drill down in our final couple of minutes of some of the other things that you've mentioned that the Red Cross does. This March American Red Cross Month, and I imagine part of the purpose of the month is to draw attention to all of the good things that you do. We've talked a lot about disaster relief, the life saving blood collection and donation that you do,
training courses and certifications. In terms of CPR things like that give me a little bit of information about that and how we could find out more about it.
So, with our mission being to prevent alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies, we need people who are trained to act there is a life threatening situation. So we have CPR First Aid AED trainings that people can go online and register for so that they are prepared to help either a loved one in their own home or someone they don't know out in the streets if they see a medical emergency occur. We also work with our hospitals too to get people trained in nursing and
in trauma care and so forth like that. With some of our more extensive CPR classes, we teach swimming classes. We want people to know how to swim and how to be water safe. We teach lifeguarding and basically any of those areas where we need to know that there is going to be someone nearby who's going to be able to react in the proper and best way to
save a life when needed. And I think that our CPR work and our water safety work, all of it is so critical to that mission of preventing and then alleviating human suffering.
You can find out how you could register for any of those things near you by going to to the website Redcross dot org. Final couple of things for you, What advice would you give for someone interested in becoming one of those volunteers with the American Red Cross.
My advice would be get started today. There is a lot of training that is needed. So we see people wanting to volunteer when a hurricane hits their area, or a wildfire or something like that, or maybe there's been a disaster and they want to give blood. That's when they start. But we want to remind everybody to get
ready before then because you need to be trained. There's going to be things that we're going to teach you, whether it's how to run a shelter or how to drive a one of our mobile vehicles and all these different things that we would need people to be trained for and w who got bomb Now. It's kind of like with our blood. We ask people to give blood before it's needed because blood does take some time before it goes from you the donor to the shelf to
be given to a patients. The same thing with volunteering. Be ready ahead of time, and so when something happens, you are ready to run, You're ready to go. I just I think volunteering for the Red Cross is one of the most impactful and fulfilling things that we can do. And I just encourage everyone that if this has interested you, to go on Redcross dot org now sign up and you'll get a call from someone from your chapter, or just call your local chapter.
Last thing for you. We've talked quite a bit about the history of the Red Cross. What are the biggest opportunities and challenges you see for the future of the organization.
I think our biggest opportunity is to continue to recruit new volunteers who are excited and ready to work in any of these different fields, whether it's health and safety, whether it's flood disaster, or our services to the armed forces. That's a huge opportunity. And we know that a challenge is that we are having more and more disasters. They're
more frequent, they're more intense. Unfortunately, that's it's just the world we live in now, and so we know that it's going to be a challenge to continue to respond to disasters that are now happening on top of each other, not with the long delays in between. These disasters that be used to have, they're now happening one after the
other after the other, and so that's a challenge. And the way to solve that is to have people like all of you listening, become Repress volunteers and help us meet that need.
Redcross dot org is the website Redcross dot org. March is American Red Cross Month. We've been speaking with Lori Arnold, a Red Cross disaster relief team. Laurie, really appreciate the time. Best of luck, not only this month but in the future. Appreciate it.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you too.
It used to be you could only place a bet on a sporting event at a casino or with a bookie. Now sports betting has become ubiquitous in America with casinos, sports betting apps. More Americans than ever are placing wagers the Super Bowl, March Madness, NFL, and college football seasons. Sports betting has increasingly become an accepted part of American culture. But let's discuss the problem that has also come with it,
compulsive gambling. And for that part of it, we bring in Jennifer Cross, executive director for the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling. Jennifer, great to talk to you. I appreciate the time.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's great to be back.
So, the biggest problem with increased gambling, with the ubiquity of sports gaming apps and the acceptance of gambling on sporting events is compulsive gambling. How big an issue has that become in our country?
So I think, you know, gambling has has gone beyond the point of normalization and society. You know, it's even more than normalized. There's gambling on everything nowadays. Right, with increased accessibility and acceptability comes an increase in the vulnerability to people developing a problem related to gambling. So certainly the more accessible and acceptable something is, the more likely
more people are going to participate. And the more people that participate, the more people that will develop problems.
And it's hard to under to understate just how how popular this has become. One of the numbers I have is sports betting has gone from about four hundred and thirty million in our country, this is legal wagering back in twenty eighteen to about eleven billion dollars in twenty twenty three.
So yeah, and I mean I can't comment on the revenues. You know, we we operate the State of Florida's eighty eight ad Minute twenty four seven Problem Gambling Helpline, So we don't take a position either for or against legalized gambling, but we are here to help people who develop problems with their gambling or for loved ones who you know,
have family members or friends who develop problems. What I can tell you is that what we're seeing on the helpline is definitely increased numbers of people reaching out, you know, seeking help for their for themselves or for a loved one. Our total contacts to the helpline have doubled over the
past calendar year. So if you're looking at you know, pre sports betting legalization in the State of Florida, so that would be you know, the twenty twenty three calendar year compared with the twenty twenty four calendar year, we went from about thirty three thousand total contacts to sixty three thousand total contacts, so almost almost doubled.
How much of that has to do with sports betting and how much of it is people like obsessed with playing the lottery and stuff like that. Could do you have those numbers.
So yeah, I mean I can tell you more about the sports betting right now. It's definitely you know, people are gambling on more things. I would say to you that the lottery is always the number one, number two thing that people are gambling on, if that makes sense. So somebody might call the helpline or text the helpline or you know, chat with us and say, oh, I'm reaching out because you know, I just lost everything on SLAT or I just lost everything on the on the game.
But when we ask them, well, do you also play the lottery?
Oh well yeah.
You know a lot of times the lottery isn't even looked at by people. They don't they don't bring it up unless we ask them specifically. So yes, I would see to you that lottery play is definitely increasing as well. You know, when we're looking at just online sports betting from you know, pre legalization to post legalization, we saw one hundred and thirty percent increase in help only contacts where online gambling was reported online sports betting in particular as the primary gambling problem.
What is it that makes someone become obsessed with gambling? I imagine placing about at least I've read highlights the same brain centers as doing cocaine does. For example, is that is that what gets them addicted.
For everybody, every individual person is different, right, There are risk factors that can make certain people more predisposed to develop a problem than others. You know, recent research has identified that participation in multiple types of gambling activities, so gambling on more than just one thing, you know, doing sports betting, going to the casino, playing the lottery, that
increases someone's risk. Unrealistic beliefs about gambling, so believing that, you know, ambling is a good way to make money. You know, I've seen helpline callers that have said, and this is a younger demographic that we're seeing too with the online sports betting, and they'll say, you know, oh, well, you know, I got into online sports betting because I thought it was a good way to make money and
I could increase my revenue stream. You know, So having unrealistic beliefs about gambling in general, you know, to make somebody more likely to develop a problem. Yeah, Also participation in sports betting. You know, we have research here in the state of Florida that is from decades ago, so long, long, long before sports betting was legalized anywhere in the country, much less in Florida, and sports betting was the number two activity cited amongst adolescent gamblers. That was in two
thousand and two. You're talking over two decades ago. Same thing with college students, you know, they liked gambling on sports way back when. I mean our college study was two thousand and eight, and back then.
They weren't placing those bets legally. That was usually through a bookie or something like that, wasn't it.
Yep, back then it was they said they were placed them through bookies, betting amongst friends. Yeah.
A new paper file to your point about adolescents and younger people gambling the lands that I think it was, published a report back in November. They found that between sixty and eighty percent of high school students admitted to have gambled a place they bet on something in the last year, and sixteen percent of those this is adolescents who bet on sports eventually developed a gambling addiction. Is that something that you're finding at the helpline?
So yeah, and again our helpline data, so our helpline data is restrictive to just a small percentage of the population. That's experiencing a problem and that actually reaches out for help. Right, So unfortunately, Florida is in desperate, desperate need of current research because these studies that I just mentioned were conducted decades ago, and those are prevalent studies. So that's you know, looking at the prevalence of a gambling problem in the population.
So so two separate things when we're talking helpline data versus you know, research or prevalence studies. What we're seeing on helpline is, yes, almost half when I'm looking at just the online sports betting population in the twenty twenty four calendar year, almost half forty three percent. We're twenty five years old and younger. So that is, you know,
that's a huge number. And that's that's a percentage or a group of people that historically we would have never seen reaching out for help on a helpline.
We're speaking with Jennifer Krause, executive director the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling. I imagine far and wide, the ones that come to you for help are males.
Yeah, we definitely skew have, you know, heavier towards men. But what I will say is for the first time ever this past year, we are seeing women reaching out for help with sports betting. So historically that would have never been the case. There wouldn't have been any women in the sample, so it was it was still ninety percent three percent women, but just to see that that is a growing group.
Definitely, with so many states now having legalized sports betting, do you see the same kind of trends across the country.
Our data is specific to Florida, but yeah, I mean I've read the studies that you sent that you know we're talking about here. It's Landslip study, and I think there was another one, and yeah, our data definitely is similar trends. What I will say to is we're not seeing the high levels of bankruptcy that I think we're cited in one of those studies. Right, we haven't seen
that yet. But what I would say is, you know, sports betting is new in terms of its legalization here in Florida, so you know, we'll have to monitor that as time goes on. We are seeing with the sports betters they have higher incomes than gamblers of other types. So we're looking at average incomes amongst the sports betters about one hundred and eight thousand versus sixty one thousand of gamblers of all other types of gambling in.
Terms of however, yeah, yeah, However, these sports betters, even though they're making more money, they're reporting financial related difficulties as their most you know, most frequent precipitating event for seeking help.
So they're making more, but they're spending more.
Do people that come to you, that that that call the helpline realize they have a problem before they've hit rock bottom or and reach out for help or is it like like we would picture a drug addict, They're not going to seek help until they hit absolute rock bottom.
I think for everybody it's different. You know, some people they're they're at that rock bottom point. Other people maybe they're not quite sure and they reach out and they might not be ready to get help at that moment, and then they contact us back, you know, a few months later, Okay, now I'm really ready to get help, certainly. You know, hitting that rock bottom is a big thing
with with gambling addiction. It's it's the hidden addiction, right, there's no outward symptoms, there's no tell tale signs, and there's no saturation point. I think that's really the big thing. You know, with with a chemical, with a drug or you know, substance, you can only ingest so much of that substance before your body can't take anymore, and you
know you have a physical reaction to it. With gambling, you can, you know, with a click of a mouse gamble away a million dollars and you're still sitting there right, So you know a lot of times they are financially depleted when they when they reach out.
Is the Is the treatment different for somebody who is addicted to gambling as someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Yes, yes, absolutely, And that's why you know, through the helpline we only refer to certified gambling addiction counselors. You know, there's a state certification and a national certification, and we will only refer callers to programs, whether it's you know, outputing counseling or residential program that has a certified gambling
addiction counselors and tracks specific for gamblers. Because even though there are similarities to substance abuse addictions, there's there's a lot of differences too, So yeah, it's definitely treated differently. So the only way to really measure efficacy in terms of you know, following someone along their journey and saying did you get better? Is is if you're you know you're you're involved in their treatment. We do on our
helpline on an eighty day a minute helpline. We do a helpline evaluation every year, and we follow up with helpline contacts. But again, those are just the percentage of people that are willing to a divulge their phone number, their name, and agree to a follow up call to see how they're doing. But I will tell you that our helpline evaluations, usually ninety seven percent, are higher the people that we follow up with have their gambling behaviors have improved. First helpline contact.
How often do you get calls from somebody saying, my husband, my son, my brother or whatever is addicted to gaming? How can I help them? And what's the advice you give them?
Yeah, so that happens frequently. I mean, I would say that more of the helpline contacts are from the gamblers, but there's a lot to come from loved ones. And what we tell that loved one is that you can get help for yourself, regardless of if the gambler in your life wants to stop gambling or wants to get help, or sees it as a problem. Sometimes you know, a gambler's gambling affects the family members or more so even
than themselves. So yeah, our message is there's help for those family members totally regardless of if that gambler ever stops or wants to acknowledge it. And there are tools and resources that we provide that are loved ones specific. Like so like our Chances for Change Workbooks, we have an entire series that's dedicated to loved ones. There's eight books in the series. We send them, I'm sorry, seven books in the series we send them. There's there's eight
modules in our online program, totally separate program. But this is the Chance for Change Workbooks. So when we can send them on demand right there when we're talking to them, you know, I can send them an electronic copy, I can send them an audio copy. The seven books, Each one talks about a different area of their life as a loved one, it's impacted by a problem gambler, and things they can do to help. So like it talks
about codependence, breaking the cycle. It talks about controlling your finances, ways to not enable you know, just different things that can help that loved one protect themselves and get help from themselves and then you know, evaluate their situation and decide what they want to do.
We're all familiar with the commercials for you know, for alcohol or whatever, drink responsibly. Many of us that live in states where gamble, where sports gambling has has increased, our familiar with the you know, bet responsibily things like that. Do those things work?
So I think it's important messaging and and it's the access to help that matters. Right. You can't get help if you don't know that that help exists. Right, So whether or not telling somebody to play responsibly means they're going to play responsibly or not, that's not really what matters. It's providing that helpline number and making sure that that help by number is on all of those ads where it says play responsibly, So not just play responsibly, but
play responsibly. And if you can't, here's the number. It's seeing that number and knowing that number and being able to access the help that's so essential.
I imagine. Obviously here in Florida, we've got your helpline, the Florida Council on Compulsive gamling. But I imagine there's one of those nationally or in every state where they have gambling.
So yeah, and the problem with the national numbers, so I'm sure you see the one hundred gambler number advertised frequently on the sports betting channels. The problem with that number in states like Florida, Okay, where Florida has a specific problem gambling helpline for the state of Florida, that's eighty eight. Admitute, our number is not GEO targeted based upon a caller's area code. The eight hundred gambler number is. So you know Florida. You know, people come and go
in Florida all the time. People are always moving here. I think we're probably one of the most transient states in the nation. People retired, they come here, they come here for school. So if you come here with a cell phone that has an area code from a different state and you call eight hundred gambler, you're going to go to the state where your cell phone that area code originates. And when you're talking about a problem gambler that's in desperate need of help at that specific moment,
sending them to the wrong state. Can I mean it can be critical. You know, that can make the difference in someone getting help or not getting help. So it's very important that in states that have state specific numbers, if that's the number that's advertising, that people know, you know, the difference in the limitations with that one hundred gambler number because it is not a good a good number for the state of Florida.
So the bottom line is anybody that wants help, that thinks they have a problem with gambling can find that information those resources in any given state.
Correct, correct, And again you know, we answer, we answer the calls to one hundred gamblers here at the Florida Council for people with Florida area codes.
All right, eight eight eight eight admitted is the number for the Florida Council on Compulsive Gaming Gambling. If you're listening anywhere else, you could search for your individual state. Jennifer Krause, Executive director for the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling, Thanks so much for your time and talking to us about this this incredibly important and growing issue in our country. Thanks so much, Jennifer.
Thank you so much for having me and for help and increase awareness.
And that'll do it for another edition of Iheartradios Communities. I'm Manny Muno's until next time.