Community Volunteer Awards
2024 Honorees
Patty Cicogni & Terry Sanford
Outstanding Community Volunteers
Patty Cicogni & Terry Sanford
Most of the 65,000 emergencies that the American Red Cross responds to each year are local, personal disasters like home fires. They may not make the news, but we know they devastating to the families affected.
Trained and available, Disaster Action Team volunteers are ready to respond to these emergencies, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. From offering a shoulder to cry on, to meeting any immediate needs for shelter or supplies, to connecting people with long term recovery services, these volunteers ensure that families don’t have to face tough times alone.
Meet two Rancho Cordova volunteers who are among the best: Rancho Cordova residents Terry Sanford and Patty Cicogni, managers of a Red Cross Disaster Action Team.
In the past three years, this team has responded to 32 disasters in Rancho Cordova and assisted 107 persons whose health, safety, and property were impacted by the fires or flooding. The team has also installed over 300 smoke alarms for senior residents of Rancho Cordova, providing in the process fire escape plans and safety checklists.
Terry is a leader in Sacramento County as "Volunteer in Chief" for all Red Cross disaster volunteers. Patty's dedication to the disaster mission has topped 12,000 hours. Her efforts led to a $10,000 award from her employer, Inszone Insurance Services, to the Red Cross.
Disaster Team Manager Patricia Davis said that upon her arrival eight years ago, she found that the Sacramento Team had dwindled, but had at its foundation committed volunteers in Terry and Patty.
Davis said that Patty and Terry have fostered their teammates through the fears and solitude of the pandemic, searched endlessly for resources to give the Recovery team, and have inspired others because they never lose faith in their cause. In last fiscal year, the Sacramento Disaster Action Team was the fourth busiest Red Cross Disaster Action Team in all of California.
During the day, Patty Cicogni, is a Senior Commercial Lines Account Manager for Inszone Insurance Services.
During the Caldor Fire, she volunteered at the Cameron Park Red Cross Shelter for 28 days, driving there immediately after work and staying until midnight every weekday, plus twelve hour shifts on weekends, helping clients with meals and other basic needs.
She’s a big advocate of life-saving smoke alarms and has made many home visits to seniors, installing free smoke detectors and helping families make a plan of how they would exit in event of a fire.
Terry started volunteering with the Red Cross in 2013, six months after retiring from her job as a payroll manager for EDD. She said she had always planned to join because of all the wonderful services provided by the Red Cross.
She said her most vivid memories come from her work with the Sheltering Team at the Camp Fire, which left so many homeless. She said the most rewarding part of the work is the people you meet – both disaster victims and fellow volunteers. She described arriving at a fire scene and holding the hands of strangers facing absolute devastation.
“I have been blessed, and it feels good to be giving something back,” she said.
In our search for treasured volunteers, we certainly hit the jackpot with Patty and Terry. Congratulations to a pair of inspiring Rancho Cordovans, honored as Outstanding Community Volunteers.
