Image: www.alexstemmer.com via GraphicStock
Deborah Carney of BookGoodies often shares on their newsletters some of the best news and tidbits you’ve read on this blog. Back in 2012, she lost everything in Hurricane Sandy. This taught her a lot about how organizations and the government don’t help the way you think they will. So, Hurricane Harvey now prompted her to compile and share a list of organizations that are dedicated to helping people directly affected. They are “boots on the ground” and not tying your donations up in administrative costs and funding things that don’t really help.
For her, a group of people created a campaign similar to what GoFundMe is now and people all over the world sent money directly through PayPal. She used that money to rent a car and go out once the roads were open, to get supplies and even simply to get a fast food dinner for her neighbors. She used it to make the deposits to rent a place to live and rent a car to drive her and her cats and what little she had left cross-country from NYC to Arizona, where her daughter found her a place to live.
People from other areas of NYC in the weeks following, when they still didn’t have power, just showed up and opened the backs of their cars that were loaded with fruits and vegetables, paper towels and toilet paper – things they couldn’t get out to stores to get. Things that the stores around didn’t have. So, if you know a family directly, don’t even ask; they might be too proud and anyway won’t have a clue what their expenses are going to be, or they might think they are going to reimbursed for things that won’t be. Find out if they have a PayPal and just donate directly to them. Watch for scammers and make it people you, or someone you know, has a personal connection to.
Remember that it isn’t just this week or today that the people and animals need your help. It is tomorrow, next week and next month.
I hope this helps some of you decide how you can help if you have been looking for a way to cut through the noise and find the real helpers.
JJ Watt
This is a football player in Houston that is already well known for his charity work. He has pledged to go out and purchase items that are needed by people and deliver them to not only people in Houston but Rockport and other hard hit areas. He is well respected and your money will go where he says it will. He seeded this with $100,000 of his own money – he isn’t just asking for money from others.
JJ Watt https://www.youcaring.com/victimsofhurricaneharvey-915053
Hurricane Harvey Animals
This one is a group of horse lovers in Chandler Arizona and Queen Creek Arizona. They are gathering feed, supplies, donations for gas and other supplies, that they are going to personally drive to Texas and deliver to farms and areas they know the Red Cross and other organizations aren’t serving.
Hurricane Harvey Animals https://www.gofundme.com/hurricaneharveyanimals
Texas Baby Bank
Diapers for babies. As the wee one is now 20-months-old, I know first-hand how many she goes through in a single day. I can’t even imagine what life would be like without these little lifesavers.
Texas Baby Bank https://www.texasdiaperbank.org/
Mormon Helping Hands
When you have spent days throwing out your family photographs, heirlooms, your furniture, your books and everything that was once part of your daily existence and you can’t take it anymore and then a group of young people walk up the street and say “What do you need?” and you can let them take out the refrigerator that fell over that you didn’t know how you were going to move, and the washer and dryer you worked hard to buy, you don’t care what religion they are. They are just there to help, and you are eternally grateful.
Mormon Helping Hands https://www.facebook.com/MormonHelpingHandz/
Other Organizations
In Deborah’s case, the following organizations showed up and dived in and helped with food, donations directly to people and with hands to help her clean out her house. They were there before the Red Cross and did more for people than any government agency did and without “paperwork” or asking for anything in return:
- Operation BBQ Relief https://operationbbqrelief.org
- Rapid Hope https://www.rapidhope.us
- Team Rubicon https://teamrubiconusa.org/
- TZU Chihttps:// https://www.tzuchi.us/
- Sheldon ISD Education Foundation
As always, please feel free to share these links, this post and this information with anyone you think would be interested.
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Great post. Thank you for this list. I’d like to add my friend’s school district. https://thedriven.net/nfundraising.donate_payment_new/eid/8668015689
Thank you for that, I’ll add it to the list. It’s small, local initiatives like this that can make all the difference.
Thanks. She posted pictures of the school gym on Facebook. Looked more like a skateboard park with all the warping. Most of her students are now homeless.
Dear God…
Thanks for this, Nicholas & Deborah. I am putting together a Press This “reblog” that will post just after midnight on Wednesday 9/6 (NYC time). You’ll get a ping, not a reblog notification once it goes live.
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
ADD/EFD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
“It takes a village to transform a world!”
Thank you so much for helping spread the word, Madelyn!
Thank YOU for putting the post together. I rarely reblog (double-jump format doesn’t work for most of my readers) – but this needed to be an exception. I’d like to see it all over the ‘net.
xx,
mgh
Good to know there are still those out there who genuinely want to help without expecting anything in return. I will be reblogging this on my site. Thank you Nicholas.
Thank you so much for helping spread the word, Amy!
Wow, this is getting a reblog right away as it contains so many ways that people can help donate to those who need it so much. Thank you for your great post!
Thank you so much for helping spread the word, Christy!
I wasn’t able to figure out how to reblog from your post so I did it via Michelle’s reblog ~ All goes right back to your valuable post. Let’s hope everyone gets the care they need! Thanks again for what you’ve shared here, Nicholas xx
Thank you for going the extra mile, Christy! If you ever need to reblog one of my posts in the future, you can do it from nicholasrossis.wordpress.com , the mirror site. Thanks again!
sharing! thank you!
Thank you so much for spreading the word 🙂
Thank you, Nicholas and Deborah. This one is definitely getting reposted immediately! Very helpful. God bless you.
Thank you so much for helping spread the word 🙂
This is a truly useful list. Thanks.
Thank you, Lisa 🙂
Thank you, Nicholas and Deborah. It is so kind of you to share this information. There are so many who have lost everything except what they are wearing. Tragedy can strike anywhere and everywhere with little time to prepare. I will reblog this.
Thank you so much for helping spread the word, Michelle!
More than happy to, Nicholas.
HI Nick,
Thank you and Deborah for the post. It is times like this that humanity shines. God Bless. BTW, I reblogged it on my site.
Thank you so much for helping spread the word, Chuck!
Your welcome ?
The Texas /Louisiana disaster is a terrible event indeed. But it has happened in a country that can afford to help its citizens, and in a state that is home to some of the richest oil companies on earth too. By contrast, Nepal and Bangladesh have been hit far worse, with a greater loss of life, land, and crops. They are also countries less able to help themselves. Before donating funds to the USA, please think about the other places stricken by flooding.
Just a thought, no offence intended.
Best wishes, Pete.
I’ve been reading on that earlier today, it’s shocking. They all need help. Let each of us decide how much and how they’d like to help.