Do More Organizing

American Red Cross Stats

As of September 22, 2005:

No more than nine cents of every dollar donated is spent on overhead.

$2 billion plus is the amount expected necessary for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

$826.8 million donated for hurricane relief ($344.4 million online).

$693.4 million has been spent already or has been committed to meet emergency needs in the wake of Katrina:

$438 million has been distributed for financial assistance, reaching more than 448,000 families.

2.4 million overnight stays in 902 shelters across 25 states and the District of Columbia.

Provided 781,000 nights of hotel accommodations for 242,000 evacuees.

Served 12 million hot meals and 9 million snacks (in coordination with the Southern Baptist Convention).

Provided counseling services for 344,000 people.

156,000 Red Cross relief responders from all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. 74,000 additional people trained in specialized disaster relief skills.

20 Mexican Red Cross volunteers (Cruz Rosa Mexicana) working in Texas to help deliver aid to Spanish-speaking evacuees. Cruz Rosa Mexicana donated 80 tons of humanitarian aid (food, water, and clothing), which was delivered by the Mexican Army.

Price Gouging

Price gouging is the practice of raising prices sharply in anticipation of or during a civil emergency. The term is distinguished from profiteering by being short-term and localized, and by a restriction to essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and equipment needed to preserve life, limb, and property. In many jurisdictions, price gouging is a felony.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is responsible for recognizing a pattern of consumer violations requiring law enforcement action. The FTC monitors gas prices across the country based on a formula that analyzes the prices that consumers pay for gasoline at their local gas station. Before Katrina, the FTC received many telephone calls from consumers about rapidly increasing gas prices, as did many members of Congress. There are no federal statutes for prosecuting gas price gouging; however, about half the states have statutes.

In July 2005, the FTC released a report titled “Gasoline Price Changes: the Dynamic of Supply, Demand, and Competition.” Visit http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/07/gaspricefactor.htm for a summary. The 166-page report can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/reports/gasprices05/050705gaspricesrpt.pdf.

The FTC also provides information to educate Americans as consumers. Visit http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/fuelalrt.pdf for tips on getting good mileage.

Definition of price gouging from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia.

Situation Reports

A situation report is a written account summarizing an event, such as a hurricane. Often, these reports are issued on a daily basis.

Visit http://www.gop.gov/Katrina for a collection of US government situation reports, executive summaries, and press releases.

Read FEMA’s situation reports at http://www.fema.gov/emanagers.

Visit the National Incident Information Center (NIIC), which gathers and disseminates information about natural disasters that occur within the US, at http://www.fs.fed.us/news/fire/about.shtml. Click on the “Morning Report” tab for the NIIC daily situation report.

Volunteering

All across the country, volunteers are working 16-hours days on Hurricane Katrina and Rita relief efforts. They need a break! Your local chapter of the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, NAACP, National Council of La Raza, Urban League, etc., as well as community faith-based organizations need people to come in and spend an hour or two answering the telephone, making photocopies, assembling ‘comfort kits,’ and the like.

If you have telephoned your favorite charity this month to volunteer and they have not returned your phone call, it is because they are stretched thin. Look up their address (many nationally based nonprofits have a zip-code chapter locator on their web site’s home page), determine when it is most convenient for you to drop in (for example, on the way to work, during your lunch hour, before grocery shopping), and just do it. You won’t be turned away.

Visit these two web sites to find volunteer opportunities in your community:

http://www.volunteermatch.org

http://www.networkforgood.org

Network for Good also has ten tips on how to become a volunteer:

http://www.networkforgood.org/volunteer/volunteertips.aspx

Finding a Charity

We all want the majority of our donated dollars spent on relief efforts – not on overhead, including salaries.

To learn how your charity of choice spends your dollars, visit:

http://www.charitynavigator.org

http://www.give.org

Charity Navigator evaluates the financial health and expenditures of nearly five thousand American charities. Give.org is the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, affiliated with the national Council of Better Business Bureaus. Both web sites are full of free information and tips useful to individuals and companies.

For a behind-the-scenes glimpse of charitable giving in America, visit the blog of Trent Stamp, executive director of Charity Navigator:

http://trentstamp.blogspot.com

Gearing Up for Rita

Hurricane Rita's landfall expected within days:

Read how the state of Texas is preparing at

http://www.governor.state.tx.us/priorities/health_safety/hurricane/rita_prepare

Here's the FEMA Rita link:

http://www.fema.gov/media/index.shtm#rita

Artists Unite

Alyson, a business coach for artists, has wonderful, free resources for artists that wish to contribute to disaster-relief efforts through their artwork:

http://www.artbizconnection.com/artistshelping

Alyson points us to the efforts of Swine Palace, the professional theatre company affiliated with the Louisiana State University Department of Theatre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (a city with 250,000 evacuees):

http://www.artshurricanerelief.org/

Thanks Alyson! Visit her site at http://www.artbizcoach.com/.

Success Story, Number 2

And we thought Shane was the only one! Here’s another Katrina evacuee blogger:

http://nobulletin.blogspot.com/

Good luck to John’s family and the newlyweds!

Georgia Peach

Over 8,381 evacuees have stayed in Georgia shelters, and they need clothing. Atlantan DeAnna dispenses clothing to evacuees at a thrift store managed by Atlanta’s City of Refuge [visit http://cityofrefuge.cc/katrina (1300 Simpson Road/Atlanta, GA/(404) 644-6976]. DeAnna says that many visitors to the store are directed there by the Red Cross.

Thanks DeAnna!

DeAnna is a mortgage company loan officer: visit her site at http://www.deannaspencer.com and her blog at http://deannasjourney.blogspot.com.

Success Story

Anyone who had the resources to self-evacuate the day before Katrina landfall – and then start a blog the day after landfall (!) – is our idea of an evacuee success story. Read about Shane’s experiences at:

http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/k/index.html

His blog is loaded with photos and links.

Good luck to Shane’s family and all their neighbors!