Red Cross reopens hotline, plans rally today for youth

9/16/2001

The Greater Toledo Area Chapter of the American Red Cross has reopened a telephone hotline and will hold a rally today to help local youth deal with emotions from Tuesday's terrorist attacks.

The rally is from 1 to 3 p.m. at the UAW Local 12 hall, 2300 Ashland Ave. Red Cross officials hope several hundred young people will attend, Kristen Cajka, a Red Cross spokeswoman, said.

“The rally gives young people a chance to come together and talk - peer to peer - about how they might be feeling,” Ms. Cajka said.

Youth participants will be able to speak in an open forum and help make three scrapbooks expressing feelings about the tragedy.

Scrapbooks will be sent to New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania - the three sites where hijacked planes crashed.

The Red Cross is encouraging young people to take poems, letters, and art that they have to share at the rally and incorporate them into the scrapbooks.

Counselors from the New Connecting Point, a nonprofit agency that provides substance abuse and behavioral counseling and treatment for teens and adolescents, will attend the rally.

Counselors from the agency will be answering phones at a special hotline operated by the Red Cross from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.

The local Red Cross ran a counseling hotline from noon Tuesday to 5 p.m. Wednesday that received more than 250 calls.

The Red Cross decided to reopen the hotline - 329-6060 - because of concern for the effects of the tragedy on area youth.