By Rebecca Marshall

Dan Lam lives in Orange County, California but he packed up and came to Portland earlier this week to help people affected by the extreme weather and floods in the Cascades Region.  His deployment will continue through Christmas and New Year’s Day, but he doesn’t mind.

“I think during the holiday it makes it even more special to come out here.  It’s one gift to people who don’t have a home (because of the storm) during the holiday,” says Lam.

He’s been volunteering for the American Red Cross for 17 years, but this is his first time working in Oregon.  He is one of 56 volunteers who are helping with sheltering, feeding, and distributing emergency supplies in neighborhoods affected by the storm. 

If you want to know about Lam’s first connection to the Red Cross, you have to go all the way back to 1981 when he was a 22-year-old man trying to escape Vietnam as a refugee.  He walked across the entire country, through Cambodia and ultimately to Thailand.  During that journey, he was captured and held by the Khmer Rouge.

“Every time I think about this, it brings tears to my eyes”, he says as he begins his story.

He was in the jungle living in a 15 by 15-foot tent with a dozen other refugees when they saw the Red Cross.  It was just a small handful of people wearing their red vests driving in a small truck, like the one in this picture. 

These volunteers offered to trade rice and food with the soldiers in exchange for the lives of the refugees, including Lam, who were being held.  Looking back, he knows so many people who escaped the war never made it through and never got a chance to have what he has, another life.

After his rescue, Lam spent nearly a year in a Red Cross camp in Thailand while officials worked to complete the paperwork that would allow him to come to the United States. He’s lived here ever since. Looking back, he says he’ll never forget those red vests.

“We all realized then that the Red Cross gave us a second chance at life. People were killing each other—it was complete chaos,” Lam recalls.

Ask Red Cross volunteers why they do what they do, and you’ll hear many different answers. Lam’s story is an inspiring one: “I just want to help people—to pay it forward.”

He will be working here in that same Red Cross vest through the new year. We will likely be thinking about him, and his harrowing story, long after that.

If you are interested in becoming a Red Cross volunteer like Lam, or if you want to help support our mission in other ways, please go to RedCross.org/Cascades to learn more.