What inspired you to volunteer? For longtime RedCrossCentralCA volunteer Erick McCurdy, it was after he witnessed his son choking on a hotdog. He wanted to be trained in lifesaving skills and became a CPR instructor. Not long after, the opportunity led him to take disaster training classes in mass care sheltering and become a disaster volunteer. Since then, Erick has supported his community after disasters, responding to crises like the Thomas Fire in 2017 and deadly mudslides in Montecito the following year. After a hiatus in deploying out of state, Erick packed his bag and boarded a humanitarian flight across the Pacific to help people recover after Typhoon Mawar made landfall on Guam. It was his family connection to the island that motivated him to deploy — his daughter-in-law was born and raised there after her parents immigrated to the island from Korea. Erick supported a warehouse while on the island, receiving truckloads of supplies like tarps, flashlights and cleaning suppl...