Semtourofduty's Blog

DETROIT – February 4, 2010) – Metro Detroit businesses, both large and small, have gotten behind American Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti, following the devastating earthquake.

Health Alliance Plan (HAP) and its parent company, Henry Ford Health System, set up an online donation site for Red Cross relief efforts, after an outpouring from employees expressing the desire to help. Henry Ford Health System is matching employee donations up to a total of $10,000.  As of last Friday, employees at both companies throughout southeast Michigan had donated $24,069, equaling $34,069 with the company match.

The Detroit Medical Center (DMC) also set up an online donation link to the Red Cross Haiti relief fund, allowing its nearly 12,000 employees in eight hospitals to contribute directly.  As of Friday, DMC employees had contributed $18,800.

Quicken Loans 3,000 team members in metro-Detroit, Cleveland, Oh and Scottsdale, Ariz., have all stepped-up to contribute to the Red Cross’ relief efforts.  Team members have several ways to contribute, including payroll deduction.  The company is also matching all donations dollar-for-dollar with no set maximum.

Quicken Loans has also held several fund-raisers including jeans days and a pot-luck lunch fundraiser.  While fundraisers are ongoing, Quicken Loans has already raised $30,000.

The General Motors Foundation donated $100,000 to the Red Cross relief fund, and also set up a web link where employees can donate to the Red Cross.

Ford Motor Co. also set up a web link for employees to donate to the Red Cross, and pledged a generous matching grant.

TRW Automotive is raising money through a charity jeans day next Thursday, where all 300 employees at its Washington, Mich. location are encouraged to wear jeans in exchange for contributing at least $5 for Red Cross relief efforts.

Two Detroit Tigers got in the action in a big way.  Outfielder Magglio Ordonez donated $100,000 to Red Cross Haitian relief efforts, and first baseman Miguel Cabrera gave $90,000 to Project Medishare for Haiti Inc., which is providing medical relief.

The Detroit Tigers also invited Red Cross volunteers from the Southeastern Michigan Chapter to its recent TigerFest to collect contributions from fans for Haitian relief, and the ball club raised additional money through fundraisers and pitched in a matching grant.

At Valassis, its Giving Committee set up an internal pledge drive, where its roughly 5,000 US-based employees made pledges for the Red Cross via company email.  So far, employees have made donations of about $10,000 for the cause.

Other organizations that are raising money for Red Cross Haitian relief efforts include:

• The Detroit Red Wings Foundation, which is donating money from a recent 50/50 fundraising raffle.

• Chrysler Financial, which is raising money through a charity jeans day.

• GST AutoLeather, which gave a substantial company donation.

• The City of Southfield, whose staff is putting on various fundraisers.

All kinds of smaller organizations have been equally generous in their support – from schools, restaurants and grocery stores, to senior apartment centers and places of worship.   Collection plates have been passed around.  Schools have held fundraisers, such as charging $1 to wear a cap, and restaurants have donated proceeds from dinners. Another organization held a drop-in “Yoga for Haiti” charity class.

Red Cross Haiti Response Update:

• Logistical problems are getting smaller, and the humanitarian pipeline is opening wider each day, but the needs in Haiti are still immense.
• So far, more than 64 flights carrying Red Cross aid have arrived in Haiti.
• Four Red Cross warehouses are open and operating at full capacity.
• The Red Cross is now producing 1 million liters of water per day, enough for 185,000 people to receive 5.4 liters per day.  Teams are preparing to latrine construction, also.
• To date, Red Cross distributions of food and relief items (blankets, kitchen sets, hygiene kits, buckets, water containers, laundry soap/detergent, and mosquito nets) have reached nearly 100,000 people (or 20,000 families).
• The Red Cross, in partnership with UNICEF and the World Health Organization, will begin a vaccination program this Friday to vaccinate 150,000 children against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus.  The Red Cross will also be teaching basic health skills, and emotional support teams will be helping children with the emotional trauma.
• At the six Red Cross health facilities, a total of 1,200 patients are being treated each day.
• Because of the generosity of donors, people in Haiti will receive more than immediate relief – they will receive resources, support and training from the Red Cross that will help them for years to come.

About the American Red Cross, Southeastern Michigan Chapter

The American Red Cross, Southeastern Michigan Chapter is a non-profit humanitarian organization that turns caring into action by providing three core services for residents in the tri-county area:  relief to disaster victims, support to military personnel (both active and veteran) and their families, and the knowledge and skills to help the community prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies.  We are volunteer-driven and reflect the diversity of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.  As part of the international Red Cross network, we are dedicated to protecting human life and dignity locally, nationally and worldwide.

To learn more, log on to www.semredcross.org or follow our blog at www.semtourofduty.org.

Ten local nursing students helped turn boxes of donated toiletry items into comfort kits on Tuesday at the Comfort Days store in Birmingham, as the campaign came to a close.   The comfort kits will be given to families suffering home fires, as well as to military personnel being deployed.   

“I would say this is truly the circle of life,” said Glen Hendricks, director of Emergency Services.    

Students from the Everett Institute assembled over 320 comfort kits.   More would have been created except that one of the comfort kit items ran out, and more organizations are still collecting items.     

People helped in the Comfort Days campaign by asking for donations during holiday parties, or holding drives at their workplace, school or place of worship.  In all, sixty organizations, along with countless individuals, pitched in to ease a tight budget by donating the comfort kit items or donating financially.   

After the campaign ended, people stopped by the Comfort Days headquarters in Birmingham to drop off their items, along with checks for Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.  Other items were picked up from area organizations.

January 21, 2010 (Updated as of 3 p.m. EST)

HAITI RELIEF UPDATES

The Southeastern Michigan Chapter of the American Red Cross wants to let Southeast Michigan residents know how our organization internationally and locally is responding to the unfortunate situation in Haiti.

Here’s the latest:

• Logistics bottlenecks are hindering the ability of relief operations to meet the massive humanitarian needs on the ground. We are working with the U.S. government to discuss how these issues can be alleviated.

• A total of 19 Red Cross Emergency Response Units (ERUs) have been activated for the response, of which eleven have arrived and are operational, delivering medical care, clean water, logistics and telecommunications support.

• The Red Cross continues to reach affected areas outside of Port-au-Prince, establishing first aid posts and assessing water needs for earthquake survivors. Inside Port-au-Prince, distributions of relief supplies, delivery of clean water and medical care continues.

• More than 100 tons of Red Cross aid has arrived on the ground in Haiti and is being administered throughout the affected region.

• As of today, we’ve dispatched 70 additional Creole-speaking disaster relief specialists to Haiti to assist with relief efforts.

• ust this morning, Red Cross officials briefed members of Congress on the latest relief efforts in Haiti.

• The American Red Cross will continue to respond to the ongoing situation and act in coordination with the International Federation and global Red Cross network.

• At this time, the SEM Chapter has not been asked to mobilize any of its staff or volunteers to assist on the ground in Haiti as part of our relief efforts.

• Our chapter is on stand by to support these relief efforts in whatever way we can if mobilized based upon need.

• We will continue to participate in a series of national briefings daily.

• To date we’ve raised more than $ 137 million in cash and pledges.

• Sixty percent of all contribution has come from online…

…We are URGING everyone who wants to support our Red Cross Haiti earthquake relief efforts to call 1-800-REDCROSS or visit our national website at www.redcross.org.

• Mobile donors can text the word “HAITI” to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross to support our relief efforts in Haiti.

• We are sincerely thankful for those who have donated to date BUT the need is still ongoing and we ask that everyone please do what you can to support our relief efforts.

International Tracing Information

Inquiries regarding US Citizens living or traveling in Haiti

• We here at the SEM also can help any Detroiters who may be trying to connect with loved ones who may be in Haiti through our international tracing service.

• Persons seeking news from their loved ones can therefore register the name of the sought persons directly on the site at: http://www.icrc.org/familylinks

• To date, more than 24,000 people have registered through this site.

• Inquiries concerning U.S. Citizens abroad should be referred to the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens services, at 1-888-407-4747

SPECIFIC INFORMATION REGARDING DONATIONS

• We are asking the public to make a financial donation to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, which provides immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance and other support to those in need.

• These donations can be made in the following ways:

• By mail send your donations to the American Red Cross, P.O. BOX 37243, Washington D.C. 20013

• By phone call 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 for Spanish

• Online you can visit www.redcross.org.

• Mobile donors can text the word “Haiti” to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross to support our relief efforts in Haiti.

• *t LEAST 91 cents of every dollar donated goes directly towards relief efforts.

BE SURE TO CHECK WWW.SEMREDCROSS.ORG AND WWW.SEMTOUROFDUTY.ORG FOR THE MOST UP TO DATE INFORMATION ABOUT HAITI RELIEF INCLUDING THE LATEST VIDEO AND PICTURES.

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By STEPHANIE STROM

January, 20, 2010-The New York Times

Don’t send shoes, send money. Don’t send baby formula, send money. Don’t send old coats, send money.

Nonprofit groups rarely look a gift horse in the mouth, and the relief effort in Haiti is desperate for resources. But the experience of wasteful giving in the past, coupled with the ease of speaking out via blogs, Facebook and Twitter, have led to an unprecedented effort to teach Americans what not to give.

One particularly influential blog is being written by Saundra Schimmelpfennig, an international aid expert who once worked for the Red Cross. Ms. Schimmelpfennig’s blog, Good Intentions Are Not Enough, is attracting more hits in a day than it used to get in a month, as everyone from the State Department to the White House seeks information about giving.

The advice appears to be reaching a tipping point — former President George W. Bush echoed the message when he joined President Obama and former President Bill Clinton last week to announce a new venture for the Haitian relief effort.

“I know a lot of people want to send blankets or water,” Mr. Bush said. “Just send your cash.”

Every aid worker has a favorite story about useless donations. Raymond Offenheiser, the president of Oxfam America, the United States branch of the British relief group, recalled being in Bangladesh after a cyclone had killed 200,000 people and watching local women trying to make sense out of French TV dinners — “complete with croissant,” he said — that required a microwave.

“There isn’t always a lot of thought that goes into these gifts,” Mr. Offenheiser said. “The impulse is just to do something, anything.”

Water is heavy and bulky, takes up precious cargo space and requires distribution. Better to back an organization working to get emergency water systems up and running, the experts say.

Blankets have many of the same issues, requiring getting them to port, clearing them through customs, distributing them and deciding who gets them — when other organizations on the ground may have plenty of blankets already.

Another widely circulated blog post, “No One Needs Your Old Shoes: How Not to Help in Haiti,” was written shortly after the earthquake by Alanna Shaikh, an international relief and development expert working in Tajikistan. It suggested giving money, not goods; going to volunteer only if you have medical expertise and are vetted by a reputable organization; and supporting the far less immediate task of rebuilding Haiti.

The comments on Aid Watch, a blog managed by the Development Research Institute at New York University, underscored her point. One person wrote about the bewilderment of survivors of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras upon opening a box of donated high-heeled shoes, while another tells of the arrival in Congo of boxes of used toothbrushes, expired over-the-counter drugs and broken bicycles.

“The Asian tsunami taught everyone a huge lesson because the problems with aid there got so much attention and saturated the media and the Internet and Facebook,” Ms. Shaikh said. “So I do think more people are aware that there is a right way and a wrong way to donate, but at the same time, there’s a certain level where people aren’t stopping to think, they just have an impulse to help.”

Ms. Shaikh gets particularly worked up about misguided donations of baby formula. “A woman who is breast-feeding is given a can of formula when clean water to mix it is unavailable and her baby needs the support of her immune system more than ever,” Ms. Shaikh said.

“Baby formula,” she said firmly, “does nothing for babies in the middle of a disaster and can even be fatal.”

The advice aid workers offer can sometimes seem harsh. For instance, Peter Walker, director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, blogged about his experience with earthquakes and noted that 95 percent of victims who are rescued alive from collapsed structures are rescued within the first 48 hours.

“International search and rescue teams may be great gestures of solidarity and shared concern, but they have little chance of getting to the disaster site in time to do any real good,” Mr. Walker wrote.

Mr. Offenheiser of Oxfam said he thought more policy makers and advisers were becoming aware of the inefficiency of disaster giving. He noted that Mr. Clinton had spent a lot of time talking with and learning from relief agencies when he served as the United Nations special envoy for recovery after the tsunami, and that Gayle Smith, the National Security Council official responsible for dealing with issues of international aid, has deep experience with relief programs.

He also noted that many Americans have first-hand experience with the aftermath of major disaster because so many people went to the Gulf Coast to volunteer after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“These people saw donated clothing piled three and four stories high in parking lots all over the area that was soaking wet and being consumed by mildew, and they went home and talked about what they saw,” Mr. Offenheiser said. “They saw first-hand how inappropriate some of the resources that were donated were.”

Ms. Schimmelpfennig said she had been able to track the visits to her blog — from ordinary Americans all the way to the White House.

“I was with my nephew, and we suddenly saw a jump in hits after the presidents spoke in the Rose Garden,” she said. “We worked our way backwards using StatCounter and saw that the State Department and the White House had visited the blog a couple of days before that.”

She said someone in the White House viewed one post from Jan. 13, while the State Department went through virtually every page on the site.

“Her tiny, rail thin five-year-old cousin was carrying her on her back up this unbelievably steep hill. So I asked her if she wanted me to carry her to give her a break.” Photo Credit: Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross

WXYZ Channel 7 hosted a Help for Haiti Telethon last night in support of our relief efforts there.  The telethon exceeded both the expectations of Channel 7 and our Chapter, raising an impressive $178,227.40 so far.

Breaking it down, that’s $71.80 every minute.

Though originally scheduled as a three-hour telethon, lines remained open for four hours, as the outpouring of support was so strong.

We are extremely grateful to the Southeast Michigan community for their strong showing of support.   So many people called in that some were waiting one to two hours to donate.

Besides the huge outpouring, people made generous donations, contributing an average of $75.  Bill Spencer, who reported on the telethon from WXYZ’s call center, was announcing contributors, such as those in amounts of $100 and $200, throughout the telethon.

Yet other, smaller donations were equally impressive.  One man said he was unemployed yet wanted to donate anyway, and gave $10.  Another woman called in who had less than $10 in her checking account, and was talked into pledging a $10 amount at a later time when she could afford it. Relief aid will be needed for quite awhile.

Channel 7 and Chapter Services partnered to make the Help for Haiti Telethon a huge success.  Bill Spencer gave nice endorsements to the Red Cross, and interviewed Chapter Services CEO James Laverty and Director of Emergency Services Glen Hendricks, along with Director of Communication Howard Hughey.  Interviews centered on the needs of the Haitian people and how the relief efforts are going.

WXYZ news anchors were also supportive of the Red Cross throughout the newscasts, and most of the station’s on-air telethon took calls from people calling in.  Andrea Ash, Diane Warren and Allison Koenigbauer from Development/Communications were also on hand helping tally numbers, collect donor sheets and take calls.

WXYZ ran promos on the telethon prior to the telethon, and also had stories on their website.  Today (Jan. 20), the station ran a story on the success of the Help for Haiti telethon, and provides a direct link to the Red Cross International Relief Fund to donate.  You can read it here:  http://www.wxyz.com/news/story/Help-For-Haiti-Telethon-Raises-178-227-40/b7zevIGS9EOz_81DbuaE8w.cspx.

And that’s not all.  News Reporter Bill Spencer is planning a follow up story on the telethon for tonight’s newscast.

Channel 7 joined forces with the American Red Cross to bring “Help for Haiti.” Thanks to you we were able to raise more than $178,227.40 so far during the telethon.

See Complete Story…

American Red Cross disaster relief efforts in Haiti received outstanding recognition on Monday during a visit to the Disaster Operations Center (DOC) at Red Cross national headquarters by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

President Obama personally thanked Red Cross employees and volunteers for their part in the work being done to help the people of Haiti following last week’s earthquake.  The President expressed his gratitude to everyone at the Red Cross for their work, saying to the employees and volunteers present, “tip-top operation, thank you and keep it up; you make us very proud.”

During his tour of the DOC, located just a few blocks from the White House, the President took time to talk with staff about their responsibilities.  He observed one workstation where workers monitor Twitter messages, pushed the send button on a message about his visit and announced he had just “tweeted” for the first time.

Everyone at Red Cross headquarters and the individual chapters and blood regions around the nation are working very hard – yet there is still much to do.  Employees and volunteers from different Red Cross units and departments are working side-by-side to ensure everything that needs doing gets done, and the people of Haiti receive the support they so desperately need.

Though he spoke directly to those present in Washington, President Obama’s words were for our Red Cross team all across the country. Working together, we will get the job done.

Photo Credit: Dennis Drenner/American Red Cross

Photos: Earthquake in Haiti

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