The American Red Cross eliminated its Northeastern Pennsylvania region as part of its second national restructuring in less than three years, shifting Lackawanna and surrounding counties into a newly configured Eastern Pennsylvania region based in Philadelphia.

Primary chapter offices in Scranton and Stroudsburg will stay open, as will smaller facilities in Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton and Tunkhannock. The Wayne-Pike office, which operated out of leased space in Hawley, closed as the organization sought to trim costs.The people and communities the Red Cross serves will notice little change, said Renee Cardwell Hughes, the Eastern Pennsylvania regional CEO.She said the national r eorganization was driven primarily by changing demand for Red Cross blood services and the cyclical ebb and flow of donations for humanitarian services, which spike when there is a major disaster but "drop off into the valley when we are doing our normal, everyday work."Under the new structure, the number of Red Cross regions nationwide dropped from 97 to 62.In Pennsylvania, most of the former Northeast region merged into what is now the 17-county Eastern region stretching from the Delaware border to the New York border.The region is split into five units, with main offices in Scranton, Stroudsburg, Allentown, Reading and Philadelphia, each with a staff led by an executive director.Within the territory made up of Lackawanna, Luzerne and Wyoming counties, the Red Cross will keep open the offices in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton, which are all in properties owned by the organization, along with the Tunkhannock office, where the Red Cross pays no rent.The Scranton and Wilkes-Barre offices will have paid staffs, Hughes said. The Hazleton and Tunkhannock offices will be manned by volunteers.Wayne, Pike, Susquehanna and Monroe counties, along with Carbon, are part of a separate territory with a base in Stroudsburg. Within that area, the Hawley office closed for what Hughes said were purely financial considerations.