9/1/2005

4 Responses to “Katrina Relief Donations”

1. There are also Jewish organizations that have Hurricane Katrina relief funds. We donated to the United Jewish Communities, for example; you can donate online by credit card, so it’s very easy.

   There is actually good reason to spread donations out. Churches and synogogues tend to do a better job at disaster relief (and regular, day to day relief) because they are closer to their communities than large, national organizations like the Red Cross or the Salvation Army, thus more apt to know who might be in trouble and where would be the best place to spend donated dollars. Given that, if everyone gave only to, say, a Catholic charity, the churches might not have as good a handle on the needs of communities that are Protestant, LDS, Jewish, Buddhist, Moslem, and so forth.

   If people spread out their donations (each person picking his own faith, for example), instead of everyone donating to the same national charity (Salvation Army, Red Cross, whatever), then there is a much better chance that all communities in the affected area will be helped.

   Dafydd

   Dafydd (f8a7be) — 9/1/2005 @ 4:31 pm

   
   

2. Kudos on your efforts to bring relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. There is another way bloggers and other thoughtful people can help:

   I have opened forums at http://www.DisasterReliefIdeas.org for the discussion of ideas to aid disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I am not soliciting donations, only ideas. Experts in aspects of disaster relief (housing, healthcare, rebuilding, etc.) are also able to rate these ideas, giving us a means of identifying the most promising ones, which will be shared with disaster relief professionals and persons in authority. Please help our society by contributing your ideas, especially if you are unable to contribute financially to relief efforts.

   Logan (f4bca1) — 9/2/2005 @ 8:01 am

   
   

3. From my own not-as-popular-as-Patterico website:

   Hey, buddy, can you spare a day?

   How many of us, seeing the pictures of the devastation along the Gulf Coast, don’t feel at least something of a desire to help? If we could get there (which is difficult), we’d all pitch in and help clean up things, rescue people still trapped on rooftops, basically whatever we could. And we’d gladly take a day off of work to do it.

   If we’d be willing to work hard, helping the people of Gulfport and Biloxi and New Orleans get back on their feet, and miss a day of work to do it, would we be willing to work hard for a day at the jobs we already have, and send that one day’s pay to the people who need it more?

   Even for Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, calling off sick once in a while (even if some people don’t get sick pay) just happens. Some people like to justify it as a “mental health day” or something similar, and their thoughts are usually more along the lines of will they get in trouble for skipping a day more than the pay that they have lost. We manage to survive even with missing one day’s pay every once in a while.

   What I think we ought to do is not skip that day, but set aside one day, across the country, for people to go to their regular jobs, and send their pay for that one day to one of the charities trying to help out the thousands and thousands of victims.

   It’s easy to donate. The Red Cross is easily the most famous organization trying to raise money, but the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities are also set up to help. Click on any of the links, and you’ll be able to donate online.

   Or speak to your pastor: your church is probably looking for ways to help; that’s what churches do. A whole church community coming together, to put all of their parishioners’ donations together, can bring the community closer.

   Why a day’s pay? Because our fellow Americans need it, that’s why. Too often people give $10 or $25, and while those donations do add up and certainly help, I think that it’s time to do something larger. An entire day’s pay might seem like a lot, but if we are honest with ourselves, it’s not something we can’t afford, just once a year. And if we all go to work, on say Thursday, September 8th, knowing that we are working for people, for just one person, who has lost everything, we can add a feeling of pride in what we are doing, for just that day.

   There are many thousands of people for whom Hurricane Katrina has meant far more than the loss of one day’s pay. Thousands upon thousands, perhaps into the hundreds of thousands, have lost their jobs as well as their homes. They have no place to stay, and no jobs to which to go. Is it really so much for those of us who were spared the storm’s fury to give up one day’s pay to those who really need it?

   Dana R. Pico (0f4734) — 9/3/2005 @ 8:48 am

   
   

4. I have made a customized EMERGENCY type search engine that links only to crisis situation type websites (like relief aide, evacuation planning layouts, crisis management setup and others relating to disasters caused by terrorism, natural disasters, poverty, disease and man-made war), see http://www.CrisisSearch.com … This niche portal was made after the Katrina devastation and hopefully it will assist humanity in/during the next disasterous crisis…

   My first ever nonprofiting humanitarian project was http://www.SpareSomeChange.com which only covers resources for those living homeless (I had suffered homelessness a few times as a youth). I will try to come up with other helping humanity type portals as I can afford too…

   Search Guy (f26df9) — 9/16/2005 @ 2:33 pm