Kyle Parkinson boarded a plane Monday for a two-week trip over the holidays that will be far from a vacation and far from her family.
Instead, the 60-year-old from Champlin will spend Christmas volunteering with the Red Cross in Kentucky on the heartbreaking mission of comforting survivors of the devastating tornadoes that ripped through the region overnight Friday and killed more than 70 people.
"This is much more important than being at home opening up Christmas presents on Christmas Day," Parkinson said after flying from Minneapolis to Nashville and driving two hours to Mayfield, Ky. "When you think about what is the spirit of Christmas, isn't it being there for one another, helping one another?"
She's one of 19 local volunteers the American Red Cross Minnesota and Dakotas Region is deploying to Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri after deadly tornadoes leveled communities there. The Minnesotans, North Dakotans and South Dakotans will help set up shelters, provide health services and give spiritual and mental health care to victims.
"The devastation like this is just hard to almost comprehend unless you see it," said Carrie Carlson-Guest, spokeswoman for the local Red Cross region, which is headquartered in Minneapolis. "It's really overwhelming to see when there's nothing left."
Carlson-Guest said more volunteers will likely be sent in the coming weeks to aid in the aftermath of the tornadoes that hit six states stretching from Arkansas to Illinois.
In the past two years, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the local Red Cross has sent dozens of volunteers to help with a growing number of environmental disasters — from the hurricanes in the South to the furious West Coast wildfires of 2020. The nonprofit, which also helps Minnesotans after house or apartment fires and local disasters, such as last summer's massive northern Minnesota fires, deals with fewer local crises than other states and so is often quick to deploy volunteers elsewhere.
"We're one of the first ones they call," Carlson-Guest said.
Like Parkinson, almost all of the local volunteers are headed to Kentucky, where tornados left parts of Mayfield reduced to rubble and killed at least eight workers in a candle factory, according to the Associated Press. The local Red Cross also has emergency response vehicles on standby, ready to assist with delivering food and water, but right now, Carlson-Guest said roads are impassable in the area.
As Parkinson arrived in Kentucky, she saw a crew clearing mangled metal debris along the highway, assuming a horrible car accident had just unfolded. Instead, what she saw were guardrails, folded and gnarled by the tornado. As she drove with other volunteers to Mayfield, they passed split trees and damaged homes.
"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of cleanup," said Parkinson, a semi-retired surgical technologist.
Many local departments and organizations are also assisting, and the Kentucky governor set up a fund at TeamWKYReliefFund.ky.gov. Local divisions of the Salvation Army are also responding, and the Roseville-based Salvation Army Northern Division is prepared to send volunteers. To donate to the Salvation Army, go to helpsalvationarmy.org. Visit redcross.org to sign up to volunteer, donate money or donate blood.
"It's going to fade from the headlines," Carlson-Guest said. "But we're going to still be there."
In Kentucky, Parkinson will spend the next two weeks sleeping on a cot in a shelter or in a hotel room. In five years of volunteering with the Red Cross, she has missed family birthdays and her anniversary three times as she's trekked from California to Florida after wildfires and other disasters. She ticks off names — Irma, Dorian, Harvey, Michael and Florence — of the hurricanes she's responded to in recent years.
"It's a great way to see the USA in one disaster at a time," she said.
On Monday, Parkinson missed her husband's chemotherapy treatment, and her family will delay celebrating Christmas until she returns to Minnesota. But she said she believes strongly in the mission, showing up for other Americans on what's likely the worst day of their lives.
"This will be in some ways, I think, a very special Christmas because of the work we're able to do and the people we're able to help. For me, that's going to be my gift," Parkinson said. "We get paid in hugs and blessings."
