Katrina relief

[magid]

What I can do

• give money (Red Cross, etc)
  Done, though I should do more, especially since I now have the company matching form to send along.
  
• give stuff (clothes, books, etc)
  It seems inefficient for me to ship to TX, LA, etc, myself, but I do have bags of clothes I was going to donate. I wonder if I should wait until people arrive at the AFB on the Cape, then get a carload of stuff to bring?
  
• give time (entering data about people trying to find other people)
  I've been trying to do this, but there's a glitch in the system about unacceptable date formats (I'm not the only one getting this error, either). So I wait, frustrated.
  
• give blood
  Need to set up an appointment sometime in the next couple of weeks.
  
• give space
  Guilt. I feel like I should offer space, but I'm leery, as well. I don't want to deal with explaining the vagaries of my kosher kitchen, and I've been burned once already by helping out an acquaintance-of-a-friend who turned out to be a bit scary, and stayed overlong.

However, it still bothers me to the point of gibbering rage that hurricane relief seems to be so much a volunteer operation, sometimes hindered by government, when it's government's job to deal with this, protecting the citizenry.

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

And, it sounds like, not wanting to be lost off the FEMA rolls. Given how things have gone so far, I have to admit I don't blame them. I do wish there were some way to expedite the process, though.

How frustrating for everyone who's worked to make space and such available and welcoming, too.