I never felt the same about the Red Cross when they wouldn't go into New Orleans.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

Am I wrong? They wouldn't put their people at risk because they believed all the bogus stories about marauding snipers. Yet, for days we watched on TV while people at the Convention center and elsewhere were literally begging for food and water. Anderson Cooper could get in. Geraldo Rivera could get in. But for some reason the Red Cross wouldn't/couldn't go in.

Should I get over it or is there a better place to contribute?

[azurnoir]

1. Yele Haiti

which is Wyclef Jean's foundation established in 2005

here is a link to their site

http://www.yele.org/

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. There were also local news reports of fraud with the Red Cross

down here, after Katrina, and some officials "quit".
Higher ups were supposedly mis-using the money.
And they sell the blood you donate, did you know that?

I quit donating years ago.

[KittyWampus]

15. there have been many local cases of fraud within Red Cross and they always manage to escape

the front page.

[raccoon]

19. No, I didn't know that. "And they sell the blood you donate, did you know that?"

I've been giving at a place called the Blood COnnection. I'm going to google and see what I can find out.

[dixiegrrrrl]

35. Try this link:

The below quotes are from 1988.
I am looking for updated info.
But..as a start:

http://www.bloodbook.com/part-4.html

"But tax records and financial statements show that, a century after its founding, the Red Cross' main business is no longer disaster relief.
Its main business is selling blood.
Consider these facts:

* Fifty-nine cents out of every dollar that the Red Cross spent in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1988, went to operate its blood program. Less than a dime out of every dollar went to disaster services.

* The majority of the Red Cross' revenues - nearly 53 percent - now comes from blood, up from 19 percent in 1971. "

[leeroysphitz]

3. Yeah, fuck the Red Cross...

:sarcasm:

[peace13]

5. We could rename it the Selective Red Cross! n/t

[lunatica]

4. You might consider this

The Red Cross sends normal civilian volunteers into places to hand out blankets and coffee. Just your average citizen who isn't being paid but who has a heart of gold. There's an assumption that they're there to help, not to be killed or hurt. In journalism there's an assumption that the reporter going into a dangerous place is making the choice personally and in full awareness of the danger. No one is literally sending or ordering a journalist to go to dangerous places.

Think of the Weather Channel. You know the people who are at the hurricane sites barely able to hang on for life are the ones who beg their bosses for the experience. They like living on the edge sometimes.

That being said, my donations all go to Doctors Without Borders.

edited for spelling

[bullwinkle428]

12. That's not entirely true - I was listening to an interview with a local Red Cross

person this morning on the radio, and she was saying that the Red Cross has employees that are specifically trained to handle disasters of a particular nature.

For example, she said that there are "international earthquake" specialists within the Red Cross that will be doing all of the on-site work in Haiti, at least for the initial stages of the relief effort.

[lunatica]

16. I should have qualified my statement, but I assumed that was understood

There are careers in the Red Cross and volunteers actually train for specific duties. It was simplistic to stereotype them as handing out blankets and coffee. My bad.

[galileoreloaded]

6. It is MUCH easier to help out in impoverished countries.

My uncles, a doc and Level 1 certified paramedic who TEACHES doc's trauma for the second largest fire department in the country, we both told to stay home from Katrina as there was no mechanism outside of FEMA to provide medical malpractice coverage.

Conversely, the worlds poorest places are much less restrictive. Ergo, professionals can get to work not be held back at the gate.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. Told by who to stay home? And don't Good Samaritan laws cover that situation?

Will medical people be told to stay home if an earthquake decimates some large city here? What you are saying is pretty incredible.

If Fema doesn't have some way to get medical personnel into disaster zones in this country than we are truly F!@#ed.

[galileoreloaded]

18. Told to stay home by FEMA and the Fire department respectively..

Both were willing to take time off work and go, but without official sanction from an agency, neither would be allowed in.

As to good Samaritan laws, at least here in AZ a medical professional can be sued for malpractice for not providing care up to the "Level of their Ability" regardless of the conditions, or material availiable.

This is why most doc's will call 911 and not stop at a car wreck, or many paramedics will carry a small ambu bag with them, just in case they feel compelled to help. Nurses are usually OK, as they are generally not considered first responders.

[peace13]

10. What you report is very sad.

Our country is doomed. We can't help ourselves and the government won't.

[tmyers09]

7. Doctors Without Borders

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

[Sukie]

31. I donated to Doctors without Borders yesterday

without hesitation.

[peace13]

8. Katrina was a complete failure of the US Government.

Let me rephrase that. * accomplished what he wanted to by failing to provide services to the people of NO. More than likely the Red Cross was directed to stand down. A good soldier follows orders.

[Nye Bevan]

11. Here's their response to these allegations

See http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d229a5f06620c6052b1ecfbf43181aa0/?vgnextoid=d8b0f0454556e110VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD&vgnextchannel=477859f392ce8110VgnVCM10000030f3870aRCRD

In any hurricane evacuation, the job of the Red Cross is to care for victims in buildings that are safe from winds and water. When government officials ordered the evacuation of New Orleans, the Red Cross followed that evacuation order and provided shelter to evacuees in safe locations throughout Louisiana and other states. Planning with state and local officials for many years had shown that there were no safe shelter locations within the city of New Orleans.

We were prepared to re-enter New Orleans to provide relief services, but the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness asked that we not send people and vehicles into the city because of their concerns that doing so would disrupt rescue efforts and impede further evacuation efforts. The responsibility for caring for those remaining in New Orleans was assigned to first responders and the National Guard, not the Red Cross. The American Red Cross is not a "first responder" and plays no role in rescue or evacuation.

As soon as evacuees were allowed to return to New Orleans, the Red Cross immediately set up feeding sites, mobile feeding routes and bulk distribution sites in the city. The Red Cross also continued to provide food and shelter and meet other disaster-caused emergency needs of those who could not return home.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

23. I stand corrected and I am glad that I now know it was Homeland Security that was really to blame

for my specific criticism

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm

Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food
Saturday, September 03, 2005
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

***************************************************************

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

32. Although here is a reference to the safety issue I touched on in the OP

http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/GovernmentRelations/file_cont5489_lang0_2022.pdf

Statement by Joseph C. Becker
Senior Vice President for Response and Preparedness
American Red Cross
House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight

"Consistent with State and local plans, and our practice in previous disasters, we were asked by
state and federal officials not to enter New Orleans. While we were in constant communication
with local and state authorities, it was not deemed safe for Red Cross personnel to re-enter the
city of New Orleans. The Red Cross does not place our client evacuees, staff, volunteers, or
resources in harm’s way. It is our practice to heed evacuation orders and assist those in need of
shelter outside of high-risk areas."

that's from page 6

**************************************************************

I specifically remember them at the time saying it wasn't "safe" enough for them to go into New Orleans. I'm not sure exactly from his quote whether it was the Red Cross themselves saying it wasn't safe enough or that this is what they were being told by Homeland Security/Red Cross.

I WILL NEVER GET OVER how our Federal Government and George W Bush screwed over New Orleans (and not JUST New Orleans) during Hurrican Katrina. I have always felt that their actions and inactions during Katrina alone should have had them run out of office on a rail.

I did have also have spillover bad feelings about the Red Cross after Katrina. After reading a few articles in a search about this, one can see they were pretty much excoriated for their performance.

[KittyWampus]

13. Red Cross withheld half of the $530 million raised specifically for Katrina victims in NOLA

from the people who needed it.

They regularly raise funds for disasters and then spend only a fraction on that area.

They are first in for the photo ops and first ones out leaving Catholic charities etc to deal with the real aftermath.

[StarfarerBill]

14. I feel the same way about the Red Cross.

Don't worry about it; there are plenty of other aid organizations that do as good or better work. I chose Doctors Without Borders to give my donation to.

[FormerDittoHead]

17. I wrote them off after 9/11.

I contributed to them, thinking my money was to go to where Julia Roberts and Clint Eastwood said it would go - to help the victims of 9/11.

Instead the Red Cross took a healthy percentage of my donation and used it to improve their "infrastructure".

I would have been glad to have made more donations in the future to help improve their "infrastructure" but that's not why I gave after 9/11.

No charity lacks its controversies, but this article, from the "Republican-conservative" socialist worker :sarcasm:, sums it up for me:

http://socialistworker.org/2005-2/562/562_04_RedCross.shtml

...after the September 11 attacks, when it was revealed that a large portion of the hundreds of millions of dollars donated to the organization went not to survivors or family members of those killed, but to other Red Cross operations, in what was described by chapters across the country as a "bait-and-switch" operation. ...

...For years, the organization has been criticized for raising money for one disaster, and then withholding a large chunk of it for other operations and "fundraising." For example, the Red Cross raised around $50 million for the victims of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake in San Francisco, but it's estimated that only $10 million was ever turned over to the victims.

...in Chicago, students were turned away from volunteering for a multi-agency relief center because they refused to sign a loyalty oath to the U.S. government!

Some more scrutiny of the Red Cross is beginning to take place. As Richard Walden, of Operation USA, wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "Its fundraising vastly outruns its programs because it does very little or nothing to rescue survivors, provide direct medical care or rebuild houses."

[Tansy_Gold]

28. I learned to distrust the Red Cross many years ago

They had a long-term fundraising project in the suburbs where I grew up. We had little enough need for emergency services, but with usual generosity thought the donations would be used to help people somewhere when aid was needed. Instead, immediately after the fund drive was over, the local chapter built itself lavish new offices and gave its director a hefty raise. The expenditures just about equaled the amount of the fund drive.

Anecdotal, to be sure, but it's my justification for giving elsewhere.


TG

[Xenotime]

20. I would run the other way if I saw them coming.

[malaise]

21. I gave up on the Red Cross long before that

They are too closely linked with the establishment wherever - backward and reactionary. I've seen too many politicians' wives at the helm to trust them. Doctors without Borders for me or Oxfam.

[KittyWampus]

22. Liddy Dole was president of the Red Cross

[malaise]

24. Ding ding

and she's hardly the only one. I know one President (in the Caribbean) who is a PMs wife and money for flood victims went to her party faithful. They will never get a red cent from me.

My mom was a big part of them when they were decent- decades ago. :evilgrin:

[Captain Hilts]

27. My family HATES the Red Cross, but with events on this scale, they are among the few

that have the skillsets ready to go.

Our bad experiences:
Grandfather in WWI. Left for dead by them.
Johnstown flood of 1936: they didn't go into the valley
WWII: they SOLD doughnuts to the troops
1990s: Liddy Dole screwed up the blood supply and hired former Dole campaign flunkies for six figure salaries
Sept. 11th: Again, screwed over the blood supply and donations.

The Red Cross SELLS blood, plasma and platelets, etc. to the military, so I donate my platelets directly to Walter Reed.

[still_one]

25. Fine, there are enough other charities working to save lives in Hati. You don't want to give

to the Red Cross, give to another one that suits you if you can afford it

My personal belief is, unless a charity can be proven to be misusing the funds for the crisis, I am not going to be bashing one over the other, until this crisis is over

[stray cat]

26. Did you go into New Orleans and risk your life?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. I don't trust the Red Cross or the United Way either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Aramony

[madmom]

29. A list of charitable organizations active in the nation...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34835478/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

[LynneSin]

33. You do know that it was our government that blocaded the Red Cross

I know it seems like a 'failure' on their part but if they couldn't get their vehicles thru government blocade what can they do.

It's just another failure of the Bush administration. You take a look at what the Red Cross has done for so many challenges around the globe, they are a wonderful organization.

[Sukie]

34. If you feel the need to check out a charity first before donating

to the Haiti disaster, you can go to charity navigator.


http://www.charitynavigator.org/