October 30, 2009

Red Cross Assists at Ada County PODs

The American Red Cross of Greater Idaho will be providing assistance to the Central District Health Department (CDHD) at its two Ada County Point of Dispensing (POD) locations Saturday October 31, 2009. The Red Cross will be serving hot drinks and water to members of the public waiting in line for the H1N1 (swine) flu vaccinations.

“With overnight temperatures expected to dip into the mid-30s, we know that a nice hot cup of coffee will go a long way to making our constituents comfortable,” said Rob Howarth, Incident Commander for CDHD’s POD operations. “We really appreciate the help of the Red Cross and look forward to working with them in the future.”

The American Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) will be positioned at the POD facility in the former Comp USA building at 1195 N Milwaukee St, and Red Cross volunteers will be working out of a tent at the east Boise POD in the former K-Mart building at 1001 Park Center Blvd. Volunteers will begin serving the public starting at 7:00 a.m. at each location and will continue as long as there is demand. The PODs open at 10:00 a.m. and organizers expect people to start lining up early.

Each POD will have over 2800 doses of H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine available for distribution. This is more than twice the amount that was available October 24th at CDHD’s first POD operations.

Questions about the H1N1 flu vaccine can be directed to the CDHD Flu Hotline 321-2222 or may be found at www.cdhd.idaho.gov.

About the American Red Cross:

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies nearly half of the nation's blood; teaches lifesaving skills; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit www.redcross.org or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org