Eastern Railroad Discussion > Be Cautious When Donating

Stick with the well known, well established organizations.

During both 9-11 and the tsunami disasters quite a few "good sounding" websites popped up to defraud well meaning people.

One good way to deal with this is to donate to your local Red Cross chapter. They'll get the resources where they need to go.

Yes, please be careful. I providing hosting and e-mail services and I have already began adding domain names to the filters on the my e-mail server. What is sad is the first one was seen Tuesday late afternoon.

Scum bags.

My hat's off to the webmaster for providing a link to the
Red Cross, which enabled me to make my donation today.

MF

The Salvation Army is widely known for having lower administrative and operating costs than the Red Cross. They utilize regular and disaster incoming donations the most efficiently of any organization. Do some searching and you will find articles that describe this. If you want the most of your donation to go straight to those who need it, instead of building up assets at an organization, go with the Salvation Army. They strive to be Godlike in their handling of funds, after all it is first and foremost a church, and the Red Cross has no such mandate. - - - - - - - - - JLH

Bear in mind that when you donate to normal charity money changers you have no idea what happens to your cash.

By Tuesday there is supposed to be a plan put together where you can donate to a fund that will be strictly for Amtrak & other railroaders in the stricten area. This way you will know that your money has been administered buy someone that knows who the employees are and who are the needy. Plain cash can so easily be used for drugs.

Watch the Amtrak board early next week for details.

CSX has a Disaster Relief Fund for employees. It doesn't say they wouldn't take outside donations, I can't imagine them turning down any funds. Here is the address, from the CSX Employee Gateway. Make check out to "CSX Employees Disaster Relief Fund", mail to

CSX Employees Disaster Relief Fund
c/o CSX Corporate Communications
Attn: Katie Chimelewski
500 Water Street
Jacksonville, FL 32202

Funds will be offered to help cover non-insured losses or temporary living expenses. God bless.

Different goals, account for part of this.

As stated by several Red Cross officials from Michigan in recent days, the red cross prefers monitary donations for several reasons. Money is easier to transport than food, clothes, supplies, ect. The Red Cross uses money donations to purchase any goods they provide in the region they are working, helping to stimulate the local economy.

What the local area is in this case is debatable, and may include the areas from Texas to Georgia because southern Alabama, Mississippi and Louisinia don't have the ability to supply the goods the Red Cross would purchase. The Red Cross also has other costs which are not faced by other organizations due to thier size and scope of work.

As stated by one of the Red Cross officials, if you feel the need to provide clothing or other goods as a donation feel free to do so. The Salvation Army is a wonderful organization to donate these type items to.

The successful rescue and recovery efforts in the wake of this disaster will take cooperation between all organizations including the Salvation Army and the Red Cross.

My prayers go out to all people invovled in any way shape or form with the Katrina disaster. There are rescuers that will need prayers to help them through what they've seen. All accounts I've seen say it looks like a third world country in many places.