American Red Cross

Horrible management!
Few years ago I was volunteer for American Red Cross. I wanted to get certified in CPR and first aid, so I asked my supervisor to recommend me a place where I can get certified. He said that since I live in Silver Spring, it’ll make sense to go to SS Red Cross. My supervisor also said he’ll send recommendation letter to the manager at SS Red Cross and I just have to arrange a date when I will start my certification classes.
Further, my supervisor also told me that because I am part of the Red Cross I will not be charged for the certification classes.
Few months later, after numerous attempts to reach the manager at SS Red Cross (in person, through the phone, and by e-​mail) I finally succeed, however, my request was rejected.
I tried to bring this issue to the attention to higher authority, but the answer I got back was very disappointing.
Overall, very disappointing experience with the management at this facility. I can only imagine what else is going on there.

Health and Safety classes no longer provide ANY take away materials — but have upped the certification period to 2 years. Participants are instructed to go home and log-​on and download and print their own materials AFTER the course. Do you know when a participant will download this material? The hours AFTER someone dies because they didn’t LEARN anything — they sat through a class and got a card that was most likely a minimal requirement by their company. Red Cross has turned into a «certification» mill — looking only for the money of participants, and not the long term training and understanding of the 1000’s that it «trains» each year in their several hour courses.
The Red Cross is going SERIOUSLY downhill.
My hope is that they realize the grave disservice they are providing to the community that for so long they have proudly and faithfully served with trying to produce real trained good samaritans — rather than just finding one more way to cut their costs (and inturn, output of «trained» people).
This is just devistating!