"Cash donations are especially helpful to victims," Brown said. "They allow volunteer agencies to issue cash vouchers to victims so they can meet their needs. Cash donations also allow agencies to avoid the labor-intensive need to store, sort, pack and distribute donated goods. Donated money prevents, too, the prohibitive cost of air or sea transportation that donated goods require."
Volunteer agencies provide a wide variety of services after disasters, such as clean up, childcare, housing repair, crisis counseling, sheltering and food.
"We're grateful for the outpouring of support already," Brown said. "But it's important that volunteer response is coordinated by the professionals who can direct volunteers with the appropriate skills to the hardest-hit areas where they are needed most. Self-dispatched volunteers and especially sightseers can put themselves and others in harm's way and hamper rescue efforts."
Here is a list of phone numbers set up solely for cash donations and/or volunteers.
Donate cash to:
- American Red Cross (800) HELP NOW (435-7669) English, (800) 257-7575 Spanish
- Operation Blessing (800) 436-6348
- America's Second Harvest (800) 344-8070
Donate cash to and volunteer with:
- Adventist Community Services (800) 381-7171
- Catholic Charities, USA (703) 549-1390
- Christian Disaster Response (941) 956-5183 or (941) 551-9554
- Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (800) 848-5818
- Church World Service (800) 297-1516
- Convoy of Hope (417) 823-8998
- Lutheran Disaster Response (800) 638-3522
- Mennonite Disaster Service (717) 859-2210
- Nazarene Disaster Response (888) 256-5886
- Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (800) 872-3283
- Salvation Army (800) SAL-ARMY (725-2769)
- Southern Baptist Convention, Disaster Relief (800) 462-8657, ext. 6440
- United Methodist Committee on Relief (800) 554-8583
For further information: visit the Web site for the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) at www.nvoad.org.