While she has been helping Red Cross for the last 79 years, Elsie said she has no plans to stop any time soon and aims to help however she can while she can.

"I think Red Cross is going to be needed more and more with the way things are happening."

Elsie signed up join the Morongla branch of Red Cross when she was a child at the urging of her parents, who were also members.

Red Cross opened a branch out that way after World War One broke out, and had plenty of members join up from around the region.

Elsie joined in 1943, and said it was pretty common for the school children to join up and help out with Red Cross and remembers part of the uniform for the girls included a white veil with a red cross on it.

"I remember my mother knitting socks that had to go over to the servicemen and they made fruit cakes and sent fruit cakes over which were packed in a specially made tin," Elsie said of her memory of the Red Cross during the war year.

After a while, Elsie said her dad had joined the whole family up as life members then at that stage.

Treasurer of the Cowra branch of the Red Cross Les Bryant said during the war years in World War Two they were helping to raise money, but they didn't know what the money was going to support due to their age at the time.

"It was very active in the schools. One of the school teachers was involved with it and she oversaw what was going on. They were raising money and doing all sorts of things at schools as well as the outside Red Cross," Les said.

While she started her Red Cross service at school, Elsie continued on with her service to the charity organisation, despite moving around to Barryreenie and then settling in Cowra and joining the Cowra branch around 1960.

During the Second World War, membership was pretty strong, with around 100 Red Cross members in the are, Elsie and Les said.

"Joining Cowra, at that stage Cowra Red Cross was very big. It had a lot of members and we did lots of different things," Elsie said.

"Every Melbourne Cup we ran a luncheon in the RSL rooms and we served luncheons for people coming in. We catered for sales and we did garden parties where we went to large, beautiful gardens surrounding [Cowra] and had different things - cooking and that sort of thing.

"They were some of the bigger things apart from our usual street raffles and that sort of things. We were really busy," she said.

Elsie said gradually things changed with member numbers decreasing, particularly as the next generation of volunteers, particularly female volunteers were going off to work.

Despite this, Elsie said they have continued and are still doing their projects including their trauma teddies program which is still going strong.

This project involves Red Cross members and community members knitting and creating teddies to be delivered to children in hospitals across the state including Orange, Bathurst, Ronald McDonald House in Westmead.

Last year the Cowra branch sent off over 200 teddies down to Westmead.

"I think that Red Cross is big at times of flood and fire and Red Cross will always be needed desperately for those particular things.

"I think they're branching out into different areas a little bit now where they're trying to help older people at home," Elsie said.

This involves Red Cross members making regular calls and phone check-ups on older members of the community who are living by themselves to see how they are going and if they needed anything.

Elsie said the Red Cross' focus has changed over time, but it always comes down to helping in all different areas.