{"id":263383,"date":"2017-10-30T06:06:11","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T20:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=263383"},"modified":"2017-10-30T06:06:11","modified_gmt":"2017-10-29T20:06:11","slug":"amirez-dfems-bag-red-cross-recognitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/amirez-dfems-bag-red-cross-recognitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Amirez, DFEMS bag Red Cross recognitions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Benjamin Petersburg is awarded the $15,000 grand raffle prize during the annual Club 200 fundraiser hosted by the American Red Cross-NMI Chapter last Saturday at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan. (Kimberly A. Bautista)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joaquin Amirez and the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Service were recognized as the Volunteer of the Year and the Department of the Year, respectively, in last Saturday\u2019s Club 200 fundraiser of the American Red Cross-NMI Chapter at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan beach.<\/p>\n

Amirez serves as a volunteer in the chapter\u2019s that enables him to provide services to the armed forces while also serving as a member of the chapter\u2019s disaster action team. <\/p>\n

Amirez began his journey with the local chapter of the Red Cross after Typhoon Soudelor devastated the island in 2015. As of today, Amirez has served a total of 3,125 hours as a volunteer. <\/p>\n

Amirez was also one of the four from the Northern Marianas who helped out in Houston, Texas after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. <\/p>\n

According to a surprised Amirez, he just got back on island and no one had informed him that he had been chosen to receive the Volunteer of the Year award.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so nervous because I didn\u2019t know about this\u2026I feel very grateful,\u201d said Amirez. <\/p>\n

He said he gladly takes up any volunteer jobs assigned to him. \u201cI was recently deployed to Texas helping with victims of Hurricane Harvey. It was quite an experience,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Amirez was deployed to a shelter in Houston and he was given the opportunity not only to help those in need but he also met a few individuals he developed friendships with. \u201cI was assigned to a shelter. I was able to make new friends and help people,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Amirez said that he is honoured to receive the award but he feels that there are more volunteers who deserve the recognition. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, all the volunteers should be recognized, it\u2019s not only me. I am honoured and grateful for receiving this award but I know all the other volunteers deserve it too,\u201d said Amirez. <\/p>\n

The Department of Fire and Emergency Medical service also received recognition from the local chapter of the Red Cross. <\/p>\n

The award is presented to one of the chapter\u2019s government partners for their valued contribution, partnership, and support to the ARC-NMI Chapter. <\/p>\n

DFEMS Commissioner Clyde Norita, on behalf of DFEMS, received the award. <\/p>\n

According to Norita, this is the first time the department has received an award from the chapter. <\/p>\n

Norita said the services the department provides to the community would not be attainable if not for its partnerships. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very responsive to the community\u2019s needs but it\u2019s really about working together, it\u2019s not just the fire department. We team up with Red Cross, together with [the Department of Public Safety] and the hospital to make things happen. It\u2019s about serving our community, that\u2019s all it is really,\u201d said Norita. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joaquin Amirez and the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Service were recognized as the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":263394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[18098,67,559,6333],"class_list":["post-263383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-hurricane-harvey","tag-people","tag-red-cross","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}