West Hartford woman helps reconnect loved ones in Maui, volunteering virtually

Local efforts are underway to help people recover from Maui's devastating wildfires.

With a death toll of more than 110, it has become the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history. But help is out there, and people are lending a hand right from our state.

"Hi Kimberly, my name is Lisa Sgamboti, and I'm a Red Cross reunification volunteer."

From her home office in West Hartford, Sgamboti will be making calls for the next two weeks, 10 hours each day.

"I see that you're looking for your daughter Julia, and I'm calling to see if you've been in contact with her," Sgamboti said on the phone.

Thursday marked Scamboti's fourth day as a virtual disaster volunteer through the American Red Cross. She is one of 10 volunteers between Connecticut and Rhode Island responding to the situation in Maui.

Three of those volunteers are in Hawaii right now. The Red Cross said they're from Connecticut and helping distribute food or provide shelter and mental health services.

"They're really a large span of roles that our volunteers, could be taking on, but their handling the immediate needs of the people who are most affected," said Samanta Miller, regional communications manager of the American Red Cross of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Because Sgamboti couldn't deploy to Maui in-person, she volunteered to do a virtual deployment and is helping people reconnect with their loved ones.

"So, people call our call center when they can't find their loved one. When we get a message from the call center, all those messages are transferred to our case work team and what we do there is, we call each individual and we ask them, 'Have you found your loved one, have you been in contact with them," Sgamboti said.

She said there are many people still searching for family members.

"It's over a 1,000 people who have been separated from their loved ones and are still looking for them," Sgamboti said.

NBC Connecticut tried reaching out to a Connecticut volunteer in Maui but given the six-hour time difference and them working around the clock to serve those in desperate need, we couldn't connect.

But we did meet Sgamboti, whose work with the Red Cross goes back to 2017 following Hurricane Maria. She was also deployed to Fort Meyers, Florida just last year in response to Hurricane Ian.

"As a disaster responder, our hearts go out to the people who are suffering. A lot of us have seen, we've been deployed, and it's really hard to know you can't really do much, but you can do something," Sgamboti said.

She said most of her calls have been positive - people confirming that they have found their loved ones. If that isn't that case, she said she'll investigate further.