Chapter History

 

By 1881, Clara Barton had succeeded in organizing the American Red Cross, which was chartered by Congress in 1900. On April 27, 1917, the Indiana County Chapter, American Red Cross was chartered and mandated to do two things:

• Assist servicemen and their families
• Be prepared for times of disaster

J. Elder Peelor served as the first Chapter Chairman from 1917 – 1918. The first Chapter House was located in the old Silas M. Clark homestead, then known as Memorial Hall. In January 1950, the Indiana County Chapter established permanent headquarters at 728 Church Street, by purchasing the former Women’s Christian Temperance Union Building. In September 1979, the building was formally dedicated as the Margaret T. Serene Chapter House, honoring Miss Serene who served as Executive Director from 1942 to 1975.

For 55 years, the Indiana County Chapter house on Church Street was the location from which American Red Cross services originated for the benefit of the people of our community.

Renovations in 1987 and 1990 provided necessary classrooms and a handicapped-accessible entrance and restrooms. However, when piecemeal improvements were no longer adequate to meet the community’s need for American Red Cross services or the heavy demands placed on the longtime Chapter house, a new home was necessary.

A new headquarters building was found at 610 Kolter Drive.  It triples the space of the former Chapter house. An Emergency Operations Center is at the heart of this new headquarters. It  contains private counseling rooms for disaster clients and military service persons and workspaces for volunteers who help them; adequate storage space for health training, emergency and shelter supplies; communications equipment and a back-up generator to support disaster response activities; a kitchen and restrooms with showers to meet the immediate comfort needs of disaster victims, emergency workers and volunteers; and multi-purpose classrooms that can be used to shelter families displaced by local disasters or to host regular blood collection drives. In addition, the facility  provides easy access to service areas for all types of Red Cross clients and adequate parking for the thousands of people who volunteer their time in services of neighbors in need every year.

No one knows when a disaster will strike. No one expected the blizzard of 1992, the floods of 1977 or 1996, the tornadoes of 1996 and 2002, the hurricane of 2004, or the fires of July 2005. But the American Red Cross—Indiana County Chapter was always there.

The new facility enables the Chapter to better serve the 40,000 people who require American Red Cross services in Indiana County annually.

  

Margaret T. Serene	Sally Zellem
Kathleen Pino

Exectutive Directors

1917 - 1918	Edwin E. Wells
1918 - 1924	Grace Chrisman
1924 - 1927	Twila Bottenhorn
1927 - 1932	Kathryn Jones
1932 - 1936	Evelyn Hinterleitner
1936 - 1942	Helen Householder
1942 - 1975	Margaret T Serene
1975 - 2003	Sally A. Zellem
2004 - 2011	Kathleen Pino