“We cut the death rate in the camps from 2,000 a month to less than 200 a month,” Levite said, noting that their success earned international Red Cross recognition.

After 65 Years and a Distinguished Red Cross Career Maurice Levite Values Connecting with Colleagues

By Roger Lowe, ARCAN Board member

When Maurice Levite became an American Red Cross-certified lifeguard in Mississippi more than 65 years ago, it was hard to imagine that his college summer job would be the start of a long career that included positions throughout the Red Cross organization and work across the country and around the world.

Maurice’s Red Cross journey included safety services training, service to the armed forces work in Vietnam and stateside, blood services donor recruitment, chapter positions in the nation’s capital, fundraising and support for international disasters, and national fundraising leadership following the 9-11 attacks.

And following his retirement, Maurice has been involved in Red Cross retiree and alumni groups, serving as president in 2012-13 of the American Red Cross Retirees Association, the predecessor of the American Red Cross Alumni Network. He already plans to continue that support, saying that he has left a bequest in his will to the group. 

Career Path

Maurice’s Red Cross career began when he was looking for a summer job in 1960, and his mother, who was executive director of the Natchez chapter in Mississippi, told him of a need for lifeguards. He taught swimming as part of a new Red Cross water safety training and was recognized by the national organization as leading the largest beginning swimming program in the country. 

When Maurice graduated from Southern Mississippi in 1964, he was selected as a national management trainee by the Red Cross and later was placed in the Service to Armed Forces program, where he served in Vietnam and stateside. Levite’s success recruiting donors to blood drives at a military base led to several positions within blood services, and then he worked nine years at the Washington, DC Chapter.

After several years fundraising for other organizations, Maurice rejoined the Red Cross under Elizabeth Dole, where he initially developed new guidelines for fundraising for international disasters. After a major disaster in Honduras, the American Red Cross put those guidelines to the test with a $15 million goal – and shattered the goal by bringing in $48 million.

Maurice was vice president of Development on 9-11, when hijacked passenger jets hit the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The Red Cross raised more than $900 million in just a few months. 

Proudest Moments

Maurice said the fundraising results after 9-11 was one of his proudest moments. Another was in 1978-79, when Maurice was tapped as a chief delegate for the International Red Cross and sent to Bangladesh for five months to help 200,000 refugees stranded at the border following a conflict in Burma. When he arrived, large numbers of refugees – many of them young girls – were dying at the camps. Maurice’s team discovered that many of the women were starving or sick because of traditions that men ate first, meaning that food too often was gone before younger girls could eat. Working with a nutritionist and a group of doctors and nurses, Maurice’s team started round-the-clock feeding to ensure the younger children, especially females, were able to eat.

“We cut the death rate in the camps from 2,000 a month to less than 200 a month,” he said, noting that their success earned international Red Cross recognition.

Life After the Red Cross

After retiring from the Red Cross in 2002, Maurice consulted on fundraising for organizations such as the World Bank and Project Hope. He and his wife, Cheryl, bought a place in Barbados and spent several months a year there, where, not surprisingly, Maurice became involved in an effort to raise funds to renovate a house where George Washington had stayed.

In 2013, Maurice and his wife moved back to the South, settling in Mobile, Alabama. Cheryl Levite passed in 2020, and their son David died in 2025. In recent years, Mauricee has been traveling with Dottie Valente to places such as Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands.

Maurice plays golf a couple times a month with former Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers and other college friends. For the past 12 years, he has been a member of the Senior Bowl Committee, which organizes and plans an annual football game in Mobile in late January for college seniors trying to impress NFL teams.

Maurice also likes to stay in contact with former Red Cross colleagues, such as through retiree and alumni groups. “The thing I appreciate the most is the connection to others that I worked with over the years; it’s a shame to lose those important connections,’ he said. He has left a bequest in his will to continue support for an organization that supports former Red Cross staff and volunteers. He said that if anyone wants to get in touch, they can contact him at MLevite@hotmail.com.