Large amounts of private donations are pouring in from United States citizens to help in the relief effort for the tsunami victims.
Gut-wrenching images on television of dead children, mourning survivors and inundated villages have triggered an extraordinary response among charitable organizations, faith-based groups, businesses and communities of U.S.-based immigrants from South Asia.
From Northern California to New Jersey, immigrant communities are rushing to collect money, blankets, canned food and clothing. President Bush ) and charity groups on Wednesday urged donors to send only money because it can be used to provide aid more immediately.
As relief flights touched down Wednesday in some of the worst-hit communities in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, groups across the USA were reporting a huge outpouring for victims of the tsunami, which left millions homeless and flattened communities that now need fresh water, food and medical supplies to prevent outbreaks of cholera and other diseases. (Related link: How you can help)
Much of this money has come in over the internet, which is proving to be a very powerful tool for dealing with this type of humanitarian crisis.
At Amazon.com alone, more than 53,000 people had donated more than $3 million by yesterday evening after the company made an urgent appeal on its home page. Catholic Relief Services was so overwhelmed with Web traffic that its site crashed. Online donations to the Red Cross outstripped traditional phone banks by more than 2 to 1.
The online generosity was a key part of a massive U.S. response to the crisis in South Asia. From neighborhood coffee shops to large corporations, hundreds of thousands of people donated millions of dollars and a variety of goods. The relief effort ran the gamut from a tavern in Georgetown promoting a New Year’s Eve bash called “Celebrate and Donate” to a San Jose coffee shop giving away free beans to anyone who donated $10.
“Online, by phone, the mail,” marveled Steven Gotfried, a spokesman for Washington-based B’nai B’rith International, which has been overwhelmed with offers of support. “Every two or three minutes, we get a donation. People are really giving from the heart.”
Much of that giving came from people sitting at their computers. That has happened before, primarily after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But relief officials said the scale of online giving has grown dramatically since then.
As of Tuesday, for example, 25,000 people had visited RedCross.org to pledge money to aid the tsunami victims. During the same period, about 9,000 people called the donor line, officials said.
Stumble It!Rate this post:
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
