The Red Cross is a great organization, but the problem with having everyone rely just on one company for disaster relief efforts, is it becomes overwhelmed beyond what it can handle.
Moreover, the Red Cross has a tendency to “bank” some of its donation money for one effort, such that all of it doesn’t get used. I made this charge in the case of Haiti, …
and I was correct according to the Red Cross.
Again, this is not to destroy the Red Cross, but to help donors realize what happens to their dollar when it’s sent to the long standing organization. Because of that information, some may want to send their money to a faster and more effective boots-on-the-ground effort. This blog post is the first of what will be a set to help determine where to go.
Occupy Sandy
Occupy Sandy is a relief effort designed to, as the webpage reads “help distribute resources & volunteers to help neighborhoods and people affected by Hurricane Sandy. We are a coalition of people & organizations who are dedicated to implementing aid and establishing hubs for neighborhood resource distribution. Members of this coalition are from Occupy Wall Street, 350.org, recovers.org and interoccupy.net.”
From what I’ve read on the Occupy Sandy Facebook Page, they give a good idea of the large number of small, good deeds that have been done and are being done in New York City.
Occupy Sandy provides a large list of volunteer opportunities that you can read about here: http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/sandy-volunteer-update-for-sat-113-sun-114/
You can also get text messages about Sandy Relief efforts, text @occupysandy to 23559.
As to money donations, the relief effort has already collected over $74,000. If you want to add to that, here’s the link: https://www.wepay.com/donations/occupy-sandy-cleanup-volunteers
Stay tuned.
Karen A. Brown