Volunteer: Red Cross is his passion

Former recipient of agency's help is now the giver

March 14, 2011 at 5:52 a.m. | Updated March 14, 2011 at 5:52 a.m.

Longtime Red Cross volunteer Carl Nappier poses outside a van he's refurbished and uses to promote the services offered by the organization.
Longtime Red Cross volunteer Carl Nappier poses outside a van he's refurbished and uses to promote the services offered by the organization.

"When the phone rings and the Red Cross is on the other line, I just jump into action. I feel like it is my calling to go where they need me," Carl Nappier, volunteer with the Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross, said as he sat in his 1984 Red Cross truck he restored.

Nappier first learned of all the Red Cross does when his home burned and was a total loss in 2007. "They gave me clothes and a place to stay."

Nappier, an energetic man who says he gets six to seven hours of sleep a night and goes from when he wakes until nearly midnight when he falls asleep, began volunteering in 2009.

He volunteers in Cole and Moniteau counties, and has been deployed to recent fires in Eldon and as far away as Dixon.

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