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09/01/2005

Disaster Relief

Here at work, our VISION (Volunteers In Service In Our Community) committee just met (like at 9:30 Central Time) and agreed to collect cash donations for victims of Hurrican Katrina. We'll be forwarding those on to Nazarene Disaster Response, one of the agencies linked on the FEMA website. Nazarene Disaster Response is very effective and coordinates closely with Heart to Heart International and other relief agencies.

Of note: This quote from the FEMA website (and I've heard the same message from other agencies) stuck with me:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Voluntary organizations are seeking cash donations to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina in Gulf Coast states, according to Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response. But, volunteers should not report directly to the affected areas unless directed by a voluntary agency.

“Cash donations are especially helpful to victims,” Brown said. “They allow volunteer agencies to issue cash vouchers to victims so they can meet their needs. Cash donations also allow agencies to avoid the labor-intensive need to store, sort, pack and distribute donated goods. Donated money prevents, too, the prohibitive cost of air or sea transportation that donated goods require.”

Volunteer agencies provide a wide variety of services after disasters, such as clean up, childcare, housing repair, crisis counseling, sheltering and food.

“We’re grateful for the outpouring of support already,” Brown said. “But it’s important that volunteer response is coordinated by the professionals who can direct volunteers with the appropriate skills to the hardest-hit areas where they are needed most. Self-dispatched volunteers and especially sightseers can put themselves and others in harm’s way and hamper rescue efforts.”


For more ideas on how you can help, go to Instapundit's Carnival of Aid.

But please, do something!

FYI: Our VISION committee has agreed to make this a long-term project. We'll be coming alongside to coordinate with appropriate agencies to collect clothing, aid packets, whatever is needed in the months ahead. One of our members who lived in Biloxi, MS about 30+ years ago said that at that time, they were still recovering from Hurricane Camile, which had come through about 5 years before. This is going to be a long, long, long, long haul.

Let's pull together.

10:15 Posted in Current Events | Permalink | Email this