1 September 2005
Help
BoingBoing has an excellent round-up of readers' comments and links on what the single best thing Joe Geek can do
to help. It's a long-ish post, with many comments, but well worth the read and informative. Xeni will be adding more information as it comes in. Read especially the list of suggestions from Erik V. Olson.
That post has many links to sites with information on how to help. They are:
- A Wiki called KatrinaHelp
- A list of contacts from NPR (grouped as "Donate Cash" and "Donate Cash and Volunteer")
- VolunteerMatch
- A Katrina page on Craigslist
- And, Mingaling posted a recommendation for a site called Network for Good
The general assessment seems to be: give money. If you haven't already trained as a volunteer, going there could get in the way of the help organizations and run counter to the evacuation. I heard a story on WNYC about a couple driving from Idaho to pick up the first homeless family they see and house them for a few months. This is a wonderful act of charity but could be a problem for rescue workers if too many people did it.
The Baton Rouge newspaper, The Advocate, has a list of contacts. Some places are looking for people with boats (who are able-bodied and capable of lifting 100 pounds
!) and health-care volunteers.
Everyone should be careful of scam sites fishing for personal information and money. BoingBoing has also reported on a few suspicious sites.
There's a lot of information out there and the whole tragedy, even when you do something to help, is frustrating because of its scale. Will we be talking about the people of the Katrina diaspora decades from now?
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