I’m donating. I find a good way to make such decisions is to ask myself what Rush Limbaugh would do, and then do something else.
A wise way to approach many of life’s decisions indeed!
Doctors Without Borders got our money this time around.
This is a downside of offering money to any of the big organizations. Typo Knig once donated money to Planned Parenthood and received mail at least once a week for years. It seemed like they spent more on trying to get money from him than he actually donated.
MSF/DWB is actually much better than that (we donated a few years back and hear from them every month or two, which is tolerable).
I’m unemployed right now, but gave $20 to my favorite umbrella charity, The American Friends Service Committee.
Just to clarify, I’d like much more than $25. I selected “$10 but can’t” because that’s the reality right now. I am donating some shoes to Sports Chalet for Haitians as suggested in another thread.
I donated $10 to the American Red Cross by texting “HAITI” to 90999. Couldn’t have been easier.
Also, the blogger who writes Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, is donating $0.10 for every comment left, in addition to $1,000 ($500 to 2 charities of 2 randomly selected commenters’ choice). This is a great way to contribute if you can’t give your own money! Who knows-you may end up having a $500 donation made in your name to the charity of your choice. (Hurry though-“contest” ends at noon and I don’t know which time zone she’s in.)
I chose I’d like to donate $10 but don’t have the money. I am currently living paycheck to paycheck and juggling bills until I get my refund and can catch up.
However, if I had an extra $10 I am not sure I would give it to a Haiti specific organization. Before you jump on me, my reasoning is that whenever there’s a disaster such as this other charities suffer from a lack of donations and I feel like a donation to an umbrella type charity, like Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, might help in other areas if needed.
I am trying to do some major cleaning/decluttering and if they need donations of clothes or shoes I will try to set stuff aside that might be useful for donation.
Green Bean, I’m really glad you like Shelterbox. I felt pretty much the way you did, for the exact same reasons. That’s also why I posted a link was because I figured there’d be at least one other Doper of the same mind as me. Thanks for posting it’s in the UK though. I forgot all about the need to do that.
Partners in Health, known in Haiti as Zanmi Lasante.
On the ground with multiple hospital/clinic locations outside the quake zone. Already providing medical assistance on-site.
See Tracy Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains for more info or their website
Everybody speaks Haitian Creole or French, a tremendous advanatge at the minute.
We donated more than we could actually afford, but we are healthy and have a roof over our heads.
I know you want to help, but it may be more helpful to donate nothing than to donate physical goods. Physical goods are expensive to ship, especially in small quantities. And they’re burdensome to sort through, as well as to store (and dispose of, if no one can be found to use them.)
I know it stinks, especially if you can’t afford to send cash.
Mr Excellent that’s our problem in Antigua - usually there would be plenty of clothing donations, they asking people not to.
I gave USD$25.00 to www.yele.org because my Haitian friend in New Jersey emailed me asking me to. We don’t have any word yet from his family. No news is good news I hope.
Yele site is taking particular items and says: "These items can be dropped off on Sunday, January 17th from 9:00am to 3:00pm at the following location:
Adrienne Arsht Center
1300 Biscayne Boulevard
Miami, FL 33132-1608"
I did a USD$2.00 donation from my phone today, I’ll probably keep that up weekly.
When I went to Kroger today, they had an option to add any amount you want to your purchase, which will go to the Red Cross; I didn’t read the fine print to see if they were doing any sort of corporate matching. I added $10, and figure I’ll do that every time I go as long as they’re doing it.
I donated to Partners in Health the other day.
I’m sorry to say the Democrats are absolutely the worst about this. Join the party, donate during an election, and you get calls from the Democratic Senate Fund, the Democratic House Fund, the Democratic Dogcatchers Fund. Perhaps the Republicans are as bad - I never gave them money even when I was one.
My boyfriend and I just donated $10 each by texting “Haiti” to 90999. We will also be stepping up our efforts to buy Haitian products (coffee and rum, mainly).
My husband and I both donated money and threw our names into the hat for various volunteer organizations should they need assistance (we both have medical backgrounds, training and licenses).
I doubt they will need more people down there, and even if they do probably not from po-dunk Kansas, but we are prepared to help in any way that we can. (The same holds true for distastes that hit closer to home.) From what I understand what they need right now is not people but supplies.
Though the Red Cross was my choice of charity, on the day of the disaster, I couldn’t even reach the “donate” part of their website, so I gave to UNICEF.
I have a longstanding interest in Haiti and have been there and worked with several non profits. I would say that while it is obviously vital to donate to short term relief, it is equally vital to donate to organizations that offer long term hope.
In that spirit I would consider the wonderful Partners in Health. Paul Farmer is one of the great people of our time and has done amazing work bringing health care to the poor in Haiti and other countries like Rwanda. I can’t stress enough how effective PIH has been in combining a mission of social justice and health care.
You can review their mission at www.pih.org.
I also used yele.org