What You Should Know About Disaster Relief

The most effective way the public can assist is to support experienced disaster relief organizations with either financial contributions or in-kind goods and services that the organizations report are needed.

When the public supports organizations with financial contributions it helps ensure a steady flow of important services to the people in need after a disaster.

In addition to food and essential non-food items, financial contributions are greatly needed to help with the transportation of donated items, especially now with the high cost of gas.

There are many voluntary agencies with considerable disaster relief experience. These organizations have disaster skills in many areas such as disaster needs assessment, disaster clean-up, mass feeding, mass shelter, first aid, crisis counseling, pastoral care, child-care, home repair, family casework, meeting "unmet needs" and many more. For related links to other disaster relief agencies and nonprofit organizations, click HERE.

Cash donations to recognized relief organizations are completely tax deductible.

Be wary of anyone who claims, "everything is needed" in a disaster. The organizations providing food assistance in the response effort need to be able to manage the volume, type, and timing of foods to facilitate the preparation and delivery of tens (or hundreds) of thousands of meals per day.

If a broad mix of items are collected and then delivered or sent to affected areas by well meaning people, experience shows that these collections typically result in a truck filled (or partially filled) with a wide assortment of things: mostly food, some clothes, some furniture, and some toys. The items are very rarely sorted and categorized, meaning that when they arrive at the affected area they need to be sorted. Voluntary and governmental organizations managing the response effort rarely have sufficient warehouse space, volunteers, or time to receive, sort, and prepare a broad mix of items collected for distribution and these loads are sometimes rejected.

Collected items should be donated to experienced disaster relief organizations.

Used clothing is rarely a useful item to collect for disaster relief as it is hard to clean, sort, pack, transport, store and distribute. Mounds of clothing take up valuable warehouse space and frequently end up being discarded. Instead of trying to donate clothing, consider having a yard sale to raise money for a disaster relief organization and donate the clothes to a local community-based organization that accepts donated clothing.