Hurricane Relief Info

[ozz]

This is off-topic but, I know I visit the OT section only rarely and suspect others might do the same and I thought this deserved more eyeballs than it might get in OT - if the admins choose to relocate it - so be it.

Last December a number of Pelican's responded to a posting for various charities for Tsunami relief, myself included. IMHO, its time that we respond to support our own this time around cause god knows we may not get much support from elsewhere. What really pisses me off is that US internet companies (save for Yahoo) that jumped to support the Tsunami disaster (Google, Amazon, eBay and others) have yet to step up and setup any means to donate for relief in our own backyard.

I know times aren't very good for many, on top of that, I heard this morning that gasoline in N.E. Ohio that was at $2.69/gal last night was seen at $3.09 and $3.19 a gallon this morning making it even tougher for many. More BS if you ask me. But, at least most of us still have a car that isn’t underwater to drive to a job that is still operating and still have a home to return to that has not been leveled.

I apologize in advance if anyone has issue with this being posted in 911 Tech section.

Rant off....

FWIW - Below is an excerpt from an article with that I pulled from Information Week on-line with information on various charitable organizations that are providing relief for those that may be interested. The links do not work for some reason but, if you search for the name of the organization you should find their homepage with information on what they are doing. As usual, beware of scams.

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In the past two days, the Red Cross -- which has a "Donate Now" button on the front page of its site -- has raised $100,000 with its online pitch. "Donations are up significantly today over yesterday," Ogden said.

As in the December 2004, Southeast Asian tsunami disaster, when global relief organizations cranked up efforts to raise funds for the affected areas, numerous U.S.-based groups posted new links and/or pleas on their home pages.

"Feed the Children", an Oklahoma-based non-profit relief group, replaced its normal front page with one asking for Katrina donations. So did the "Salvation Army", which has a donation link on its home page.

Members of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, an association of more than 40 groups, including many prominent religious relief agencies, also pitched in. "The United Jewish Communities", "Catholic Charities USA", and "United Methodist Committee" on Relief all offered home page links for Katrina relief donations.

But mainstream Web sites that had jumped to pull in money for the tsunami victims showed no evidence of repeating it here in the U.S. for Katrina's. Amazon.com, which raised more than $14 million for the American Red Cross in January via a donation link on its home page, didn't have one as of mid-day Monday. Nor did Google, Yahoo, MSN, or eBay, all of which hustled earlier in the year to put up donation links on their portals. (Google slapped up an "Information about Hurricane Katrina" link on its Spartan home page, but that led to news sources and stories.)

An Amazon spokesperson said that the online retailer had no plans to post a donation link on its site. "Each case is different," she said. "The Red Cross has essentially given over its entire site to donations. The tsunami came out of the blue, so it was an 'all hands on deck' situation, but the Red Cross has been getting ready for this and getting its message out there for several days."

Although no known fraud alerts -- other than some reports of price gouging in the New Orleans area -- had been issued as of Monday, they're coming, said Audri Landford, the co-editor of ScamBusters.org.

"I would be shocked if there were not scams going on even as we speak," she said. "After 9-11, scammers were busy within an hour."

Any time money is involved -- as in a disaster when people open their wallets to relief organizations -- scams are sure to follow, Landford added. To avoid the inevitable online fraud, she recommended that consumers refrain from responding to any e-mail donation request, insure that a charity is legit by visiting the Better Business Bureaus' Give.org, never open attached files (which often pose as photos of the disaster but are actually worms or spyware), and most importantly, use common sense. "That's actually number one," she said.

[Mysterytrain]

Good thoughts Gary..here comes the bump!

[randywebb]

I'll just add this -- we often think of New Orleans as more or less well-off since it is part of the US, as vs. areas hit by other disasters recently. But actually New Orleans is probably the poorest city in the US - a lot of people can't even afford cars there. This is especially true of the area known as the Ninth Ward - where some of the levee breaches happened - it is one of the poorest parts of the city.

So New Orleans does need help.

[Early_S_Man]

Good comments, Gary! Reminds me of Gordon Sinclair's radio broadcast commentary from 1973!

http://www.phillytalkradioonline.com/comment/usa.html

Gas has reached $2.99 - $3.19 in central Texas, and will go to $3.50 soon enough according to distributors ...

AOL now has links to relief organizations on the news page.

[DG624]

http://www.redcross.org/where/chapts.asp
Charity Navigator provides information on charities and tips on giving.

American Red Cross, 800-HELP-NOW (435-7669) English, 800-257-7575 Spanish.
America's Second Harvest, 800-344-8070.
Adventist Community Services, 800-381-7171.
Catholic Charities USA, 800-919-9338.
Christian Disaster Response, 941-956-5183 or 941-551-9554.
Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, 800-848-5818.
Church World Service, 800-297-1516.
Convoy of Hope, 417-823-8998.
Lutheran Disaster Response, 800-638-3522.
Mennonite Disaster Service, 717-859-2210.
Nazarene Disaster Response, 888-256-5886.
Operation Blessing, 800-436-6348.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, 800-872-3283.
Salvation Army, 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769).
Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief, 800-462-8657, Ext. 6440.
United Methodist Committee on Relief, 800-554-8583.

This is a list I got from the League of Conservation Voters. I wish I had more money to donate. Misissippi is very poor and they were hurt by this. N.O. was considering spending $168 million to improve the Super Dome, seems very extravagant when many of the city's residents don't have food and shelter.