Salute to heroes: Greensboro firefighter honored for her philanthropy
Hannah Johnson says, "It's at the core of who I am"
Hannah Johnson says, "It's at the core of who I am"
Hannah Johnson says, "It's at the core of who I am"
Greensboro firefighter and EMT Hannah Johnson will be honored for her philanthropy and contributions to the community as part of the annual Salute to Heroes event, put on by the American Red Cross.
Johnson credits her mother, Marsha Chadwick Johnson, for her values. She was an English teacher and one of the first female police officers in Fayetteville's history.
"It was exemplified to be from a really young age. My mother was probably the closest to an angel of a human that I've ever met in my life," she says.
She joined the Greensboro Fire Department shortly after her mother passed away and has spent much of that time involved in various charitable projects, including service on the department's peer support and mentorship team, where the focus is on mental health.
"What we see when we get there can be extremely traumatic because we see things right after they've just happened and the scene is chaotic," she says. "We're realizing how successful we can be if we encourage people to talk about the things they've seen and to talk about what they're feeling and how these bad calls have affected them."
In addition to that, she is the secretary for the Greensboro Firefighters Fund, a 501(c)(3) charity that aims to assist sick and injured firefighters and their families.
She's an advocate for autism awareness, helping to organize a t-shirt drive to pay for special ops care kits that firefighters and police officers can hand out to children and autistic adults in stressful situations.
She'd worked with the city's police department on a program to reduce use of force incidents during medical emergencies.
"If a situation becomes misdiagnosed in some way and someone who's having a seizure or a stroke is not responding appropriately and they look inebriated, when the police officer shows up we're giving them the tools to recognize that this person needs further evaluation," she says.
And she uses her social media influence to help the less fortunate through David Morris' Food and Dignity Item Donation Program and Bob's Closet, which provides free clothing.
"Just because I was able to help further these efforts doesn't mean that I'm responsible for them and I feel like I should absolutely accept this award on behalf of everyone who has contributed, even in a small way to any of these efforts because the success of them, it's like ripples in a pond. So we want those ripples to continue and to be far-reaching," she says.
To learn more about the Salute to Heroes program or to buy tickets to this year's event, visit the American Red Cross website.