You see, the American Red Cross is a founding partner of the Measles Initiative – one of the most successful global health partnerships of our lifetime. We’ve been supporting mass vaccination campaigns in more than 60 impoverished countries for nearly 10 years, but recently I’ve seen awareness of the problem and support for the solution grow exponentially.

And just in time. We’re so close to our goal, but outbreaks throughout Africa and a significant funding gap are threatening to take innocent lives and erase all of our progress. It’s comforting to know that others understand the urgency and are willing to join the effort.

Take former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, for example. They recently coauthored an op-ed to remind world leaders that measles remains a persistent problem and detail what needs to be done to end the fight – for good.

The World Health Organization estimates that the combined effect of decreased financial and political commitment may result in a return to over 500,000 measles deaths a year by 2013, erasing progress achieved over the past 18 years.

Then came an exciting partnership with the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), for which all-star Candace Parker of the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks and well-known humanitarian Dikembe Mutombo of NBA fame donated their time and voices to a Public Service Announcement that debuted during the first round of WNBA Playoff games. Plus the WNBA, three of its teams and the American Red Cross chapters in Atlanta, Phoenix and Seattle raised the bar (and funds) to help vaccinate the equivalent of 67 villages last week.

As I write this post, last season’s champs, the Phoenix Mercury, are preparing to host another Vaccinate a Village night as they face off against the Seattle Storm in the Western Conference Finals this Sunday.

This success impressed our friends over at the ONE Campaign who blogged about the partnership and showed just how important the Measles Initiative is to the success of other world health initiatives.

(The) reduction in measles deaths accounts for approximately 23 percent of all progress to date on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 — an impressive statistic worth remembering as we look forward to the MDG Summit in September and ONE’s broader work on vaccines this fall and into next year.

To round out the week, Melinda Gates shared the winner of her foundation’s poster contest with GOOD to draw attention to the upcoming MDG Summit, which, among other things, aims to improve the health of mothers and children. Designers based in Milan and New York found their inspiration in the Measles Initiative’s success, creating a message that we hope will spread – faster than the disease itself.

Although all of this high-profile support is helping, we need people like you to maintain this momentum. As we enter our tenth year of saving lives, join the American Red Cross and its Measles Initiative partners in an effort to vaccinate children — village by village — across the globe. In less than a decade, we have immunized 700 million children against measles. But this is not enough.

450 people still die each day. You can prevent this fate.

With a $1 donation, you can help vaccinate one child. With help from your friends, classmates and coworkers, you can easily help vaccinate an entire village.

Visit MeaslesInitiative.org to learn how your community, classroom or clan can make a gift that will last a lifetime.

• The Seven-Fold Path to Enlightened Emergency Management [Homeland Security Watch]
• Social Data and Emergency Communications [C-Span]
• Tweeting for Help: Red Cross Explores Social Media [Social Times]

Tonic: What cause is nearest and dearest to your heart? How did you first get involved?

ER: My cause is really the American Red Cross, and I’m incredibly passionate about it, and I’ve been involved for over five years. Basically, I do everything that my mother tells me to do (laughs), and now that I have a kid I really do understand the power of that. The Red Cross had reached out to me in 2005 to participate in a campaign in New York, but I got involved because I had a personal experience with them, and my mother basically told me that I owed them for all that they had done for her.

When I was in high school my mother had a house in Missouri that had a fire and the roof was severely damaged, and she was very financially challenged at the time and couldn’t afford to get it repaired and The Red Cross stepped in and replaced her roof. I just feel, from the ground level, whether it’s a hurricane, a fire, floods, the Red Cross and its volunteers really provide the basic necessities in a time of crisis and need. They do their job.

• Time to perform CPR on Mad Men [Chicago Chapter]
• Danger Will Robinson, Danger! [Greater Salt Lake Area Chapter]
• Eternal Optimism of the American Mind [Louisville Chapter]
• Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts [Oregon Trail Chapter]
• Shipping Supplies to Iowa [St. Louis Chapter]

That squirrel even got into some of our preparedness posters:

This week in 2008 Tropical Storm Fay was born, a dam burst in the Grand Canyon, and we were starting to really see the value of Twitter.

This week in 2007 the Red Cross Blog didn’t exist yet – but it would enter our lives a week later on August 28th! Check out our first post.

We are having overwhelming response on the ustream link. Please use the direct link and be patient with us. Thank you for tuning in!

http://bit.ly/9KPJu

Please feel free to join us online for our Emergency Social Data Summit on Thursday, August 12, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM (ET). There are several ways to do this:

1) Visit the NextGenWeb site (http://nextgenweb.org) to see the event via ustream.  This ustream will be archived via The Emergency Social Data blog

2) Via Twitter and #crisisdata hashtag.  We will be watching and broadcasting this hashtag all day and there will be an official  Twitter chat at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. PDT featuring questions from @ntenhross and @ikepigott.

3) Add your contributions to the Crisis Data wiki (http://crisisdata.wikispaces.com)

We’re hosting this event to bring together government agencies, emergency management professionals, disaster response organizations, tech companies and concerned citizens to address how to reply to these digital requests for help more effectively. That means what you bring to this discussion is really important. So we’ve created a variety of ways we can all interact.

>> Emergency Social Data Summit Agenda

Lots of people are talking about the Emergency Social Data Summit we’re hosting tomorrow. Remember you can participate online – here’s how.

• Read Write Web
• Chronicle of Philanthropy
• Beth’s Blog
• Geoff Livingston Blog
• Shashi Bellamkonda Social Media Swami
• In Case of Emergency … Read Blog
• Web Pro News
• Social Times
• Craig Newmark
• NextGenWeb
• Smart Brief Blog

Over the past year we’ve noticed that you increasingly contact us at our Twitter and Facebook account with requests for emergency help.

We suspected we were not alone among disaster responders in receiving this sort of info so we conducted a survey that indeed proves you are increasingly turning to the social web for help.

Because of this, we’re gathering government, nonprofits, social technologists, and engaged citizens to begin evaluating the increased role of the public in disaster response in the age of the social web.

>> Join us on August 12 for a live ustreamed event.
>> Read our white paper research on this issue
>> Press release about the Summit, the issue, and the research
>> Follow #crisisdata on Twitter to submit questions and to be part of the discussion

Here are some other interesting facts about the ARC CPR & First Aid Class:
1. The ARC trains 10,000,000 people in CPR and First Aid per year!
2. Every one of the 722 Red Cross chapters offers training, so if you’re interested in signing up, you can just contact your nearest chapter.
3. They have a number of classes from babysitting to lifeguard training, so no matter what your interests, they probably have something for you.

My name is Jalen Chow and I am a 7th grader from Brookline, Massachusetts. I am visiting the Red Cross. Before this trip, like most kids, I knew very little about the Red Cross. But this week, I get a chance to learn all about it. I plan on observing how blood is donated at one of the blood donor centers as well as visiting places such as the Disaster Operations Center, and going to Ashburn to observe the SAF Call Center. After learning about these various places I will write about them on the blog so that you can get an inside look at how many of these different facilities work. Stay tuned…