Too Much Food, Clothing Being Sent To New York

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Too Much Food, Clothing Being Sent To New York
Posted: 8:00 p.m. EDT September 17, 2001

NEW YORK – A story on the New York Times Web site carries a message from officials overseeing donations to New York City. Their plea? Please stop sending food and clothing. The food that is being donated to help the city’s relief effort is overflowing and much is reportedly being dumped, uneaten. Warehouses as far as 90 miles away from the city are packed to the ceiling with new clothing.
…
On Sept. 13, the American Red Cross sent out a press release urging people not to organize nonsanctioned collection drives for goods in support of Red Cross relief efforts. In bold letters, the statement said: “What the public needs to understand is that the Red Cross cannot accept donations of food, clothing or other tems.”…

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And they’re throwing the food out, instead of giving it to homeless shelters, churches etc.

I guess there’s evil here in the US, too.

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Uh, no. Actually they are redistributing it to homeless shelters all over the city. They have been doing this since last Thursday. The manpower required to redistribute the goods takes people away from the rescue effort, and that’s why they have asked people to stop sending stuff.

4

I wouldn’t necessarily say that they were being evil. The food might be highly perishable and the risk too great to afford sending it to someone else. Now, if these are canned goods, etc, that are being thrown out, then that is disgraceful. But the facts should be known before we start saying that what they are doing is evil.

5

Oops, Friedo beat me to it. And I’m glad for his response.

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Read the link. And it’s only been a week, what packaged food goes bad in a week? I doubt people were sending fresh meat and milk…

As far as manpower, they have also been complaining that there are too many volunteers.

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This is a common problem with disasters. Well-meaning people initiate impromptu food and clothing drives without the knowledge of the people responsible for distributing the gains. Result? Relief workers have no way of efficient distribution. Storage space costs money. Yes, there must be other options than just throwing away the exces. But put yourselves in the place of those relief workers; what would you do if you were faced with this situation?

The real problem here is the well-meaning people who are working outside the official channels. For the relief effort to run smoothly, there needs to be communication among the offices responsible for the workers. Those who act outside official channels create a breakdown in communication. All this food and clothing but nobody knows it’s coming, they just know what they’re told. Organizing donation drives is fine, but please let one of the relief organizations what you’re doing so they can make sure your gains gets to the right people.

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Just heard a report from a relief worker. Some of what was tossed had indeed been fresh meat & veggies at some point.