I've heard this and looked this up on snopes.com - http://www.snopes.com/medical/emergent/redcross.asp Quote:
"There is truth to one of the rumors, however. During WWII the American Red Cross did indeed charge American servicemen for coffee, doughnuts, and lodging. However, it did so because the U.S. Army asked it to, not because it was determined to make a profit off homesick dog faces."

It goes on to explain that Allied soldiers were being charged by their Red Crosses (British, Australian etc), and Secretary of War Stimson felt that would create animosities among allies. So for the good of the Alliance, the Red Cross charged nominal fees for donuts etc - even though they didn't want to. That created animosities among GIs that Gen Eisenhower tried to smooth over. Too bad Ike didn't have the furnace of the Internet to respond to what must have seemed like a pretty petty practice, and may have seemed demeaning to servicemen too.

So just a couple reminders: the Red Cross doesn't charge for any assistance - its a charity that receives its funds from a generous American public. Nowadays volunteers strive to be good stewards of the donated dollars, no wasting them, but not withholding necessary assistance either. Its all free of charge.

The Red Cross is different in every nation - there are hundreds of International Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations in nearly every country of the world, all operating according to the same mission. Nation by nation they tend to provide very different things - ambulance service is popular in the UK whereas in the US we mostly have fire departments dispatching assistance. And your American Red Cross is community based - its organized by counties, or in sparsely populated places like Nebraska, the local chapter can represent several dozen counties. Personally I think the local organization is most responsive to local needs, and services local disasters best. And the national Red Cross can rally together for larger disasters like Sandy, and even lesser ones that can overwhelm like earthquakes and wild fires in California.

I'm sorry WWII GIs were asked to pay for Red Cross donuts and coffee. If they had known where the order came from, they might have spent their after years cursing the GD US Army rather than the GD Red Cross. We sometimes get donated donuts from Krispy Kream, and nowadays they're always free.