Red Cross opens new Dublin office

The American Red Cross has a new home in Dublin.

The organization moved from its previous location on U.S. 441 South to its new digs at 1825 Veterans Blvd. Suite 6, holding an open house on Thursday, March 13.

The new office is located across from the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center. where the Red Cross regularly holds bloods drives.

“We are extremely excited and wanted to invite people to stop by and see everything that is going on and show how the Red Cross works,” said Peggy Bentz, community disaster program specialist. “We are now right here on this main road. I am excited for what is to come. I can’t wait to see our volunteers and partners join in like we used to have. We want people to know we need volunteers.”

Volunteer Paul Williams likes the location since it is also closer to The Salvation Army, another organization he helps out during the year.

“It seems like we’ll be out more in the community and they’ll be able to see us a little bit more, Williams said. “I’ve been helping with the Red Cross for 13 years.”

Bentz said they were researching areas for them to move to when the building on Veterans Boulevard popped up.

“We were blessed to find it,” she said. “(Curry) worked with us to make sure we were able to get in here.” 

The Red Cross is now back toward town, hoping that this will bring in more people. Bentz would like to see more people get involved in what the Red Cross does in the community.

“We try to make sure people who go through a disaster have us respond immediately,” she said. “We are able to do that with volunteer help. As we all know, it doesn’t happen at 2 in the afternoon. Sometimes people don’t make it out with anything. We try to make sure they have those immediately emergency needs.”

A majority of what they do is house fires. Volunteers may be called to an assignment out of the state or in a different part of the state. 

Jackie Shoemaker, executive director of the South Central Georgia, likes the nice spacious conference room that they will be able to use to offer training.

“We’ll be able to offer more services from right here to our public,” Shoemaker said. “We really appreciate volunteers. We are 90 percent volunteer based. If people want to volunteer, they can stop by here and talk to our staff here. We always appreciate financial support because without that, we can’t do our mission. 

“The training for the preparedness classes we’d like to offer can happen here or we can go to their facility. They are free of charge to get folks ready for a number of different disasters. Home fires are the most common disaster that we face, but we have to be ready for tornadoes, thunderstorms and hurricanes.” 

In 2024, volunteers responded to more than 270 disaster in the South Central Georgia Chapter area. Volunteers assisted with almost 1,800 people after those events in the 25 area counties.

“We service those counties through our volunteers spread throughout those counties,” Shoemaker said. “We have offices in Dublin and in Valdosta.”

The Red Cross works with local firefighters to place smoke detectors inside of homes. All people have to do is give the Red Cross a call.

“We install them for free,” Shoemaker said. “If somebody calls and says they need a fire alarm to make their home safer, we’ll go install them.” 

For more information, call the Red Cross at (478) 275-1754.