The American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois honored 12 local heroes in 11 categories at the annual Red Cross Heroes Breakfast last Wednesday. In the past week, volunteer disaster responders have also been dispatched to 21 fires and helped 89 people. Of the people helped, 59 were adults and 30 were children. The fires happened in towns and neighborhoods across Chicago & northern Illinois including Harvey, Berwyn, Blue Island, Rockford, Flossmoor and ten of them happening in Chicago. The Red Cross provided resources to help address immediate basic needs of those affected such as temporary housing, food, clothing, comfort kits with toiletry items, information about recovery services and health and mental health services. The Red Cross will continue the “Sound the Alarm” campaign this week by installing hundreds of free smoke alarms along with local partners.