By Rick Padden, American Red Cross Public Affairs
- Name: Ken Harnett
- Location: Fort Lupton
- GAP: Mass Care/ERV Driver
- Length of service: 7 years
- Deployments: 6
American Red Cross volunteer Ken Harnett has a motto: to offer a helping hand and a grasp of hope to those that have been affected by nature’s wrath.
In his seven years with the organization, Harnett has been heavily involved in various shelter management efforts, logistics, bulk distribution and local DAT responses in the Fort Lupton area, but what he really enjoys is hitting the road. “I like shelter work, but I prefer driving ERVs more,” he said recently” Emergency Response Vehicles are instrumental in almost every phase of disaster response and are the real workhorses of Red Cross deployments – carrying food, water and supplies to events large and small across the country. “ERVs, get you out in the field,” Harnett said, “out into the neighborhoods where people are working to clean up following a disaster. It’s rewarding to me, to see a person handed a hot meal – to meet them personally.”
Harnett, 62, retired from the USDA’s beef-grading branch after 34 years of working in Colorado, Texas and Hawaii, and it was Hurricane Katrina that sparked his interest in volunteering. “God put me here to help people,” he said. “I’ve always had a desire to help others, and when Katrina hit in ’05, I tried to get in contact with the Red Cross.” He wasn’t able to fully connect at that time, but later a relative of a co-worker helped him get involved.
He originally took his classroom training in Denver at the Mile High Chapter, but eventually switched to NoCo, and has been on six national deployments and several regional ones since signing on. He offered his helping hand this past summer driving an ERV with a partner all the way to Tulsa, OK to feed folks recovering from severe flooding, and then drove on to Columbia, SC with another volunteer – a 3,400-mile round trip. He worked the Lumberton, NC shelter following Hurricane Florence in 2018; drove ERVs in the Houston area following Hurricane Harvey in 2017; worked as a shelter manager in North Carolina in 2016; and also deployed to Louisiana as an ERV driver that same year.
One of the things Harnett likes about road trips, in addition to seeing new parts of the country, is seeing convoys of utility company trucks and tree removal trucks traveling the highways on their way to help. “You wave at ‘em, and they wave back,” he said. Harnett, who has also deployed to regional events in Wyoming (flooding) and Colorado (fires), has slept in staff shelters, client shelters and in motels – and tries to remain flexible.
When asked if sharing a room came easy for him, he said the key is just to be ready to adapt. “You have to be up front with people is all, communicate, ask questions. Like, do you snore that you know of? What time do you get up?” He’s had people insist on buying him breakfast, had people interview him for news stories, and generally enjoys being out in the field face-to-face with people.
“We use our PA system on the ERV to let folks know we’re there, and sometimes get off the truck to take them a meal personally. Most everyone is appreciative, and some have tears in their eyes. “Then you get people who just want to give you a hug. It’s pretty cool. And sometimes people say they want to join the Red Cross when this is over.” Harnett also volunteers at his church food bank, has a woodworking hobby and loves to make gifts for his five grandchildren. His wife, Sheri, has been a Red Cross volunteer for the past three years or so, and also deploys.
I Have worked with Ken he is a great guy to work with. I hope to go out on a DR with him in the ERV. sometime.