MPR has a page listing “aid organizations accepting donations for earthquake relief for Haiti.” Two of them have a Northfield connection:
Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) has been the focus of Northfield-based 5th Bridge. See the FMSC Haiti Earthquake Response page. - Northfield native Gary Dahl works for the American Refugee Committee Int’l (ARC). He’s the Country Director for Thailand and was the project leader for the Fishing Boat Project “which distributed more than 360 boats to fishermen in Thailand who lost their fishing boats in the tsunami.”
Also, Jane McWilliams has a Haitian Relief blog post on Northfield.org. Northfielder Paul Miller recommends donations to Partners in Health, as does book author Tracy Kidder whose op-ed piece in today’s New York Times is titled Country Without a Net:
But there are effective aid organizations working in Haiti. At least one has not been crippled by the earthquake. Partners in Health, or in Haitian Creole Zanmi Lasante, has been the largest health care provider in rural Haiti. (I serve on this organization’s development committee.) It operates, in partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health, some 10 hospitals and clinics, all far from the capital and all still intact. As a result of this calamity, Partners in Health probably just became the largest health care provider still standing in all Haiti.
Fortunately, it also offers a solid model for independence — a model where only a handful of Americans are involved in day-to-day operations, and Haitians run the show. Efforts like this could provide one way for Haiti, as it rebuilds, to renew the promise of its revolution.
I’ve been extremely encouraged by the way that social media and technology are being used to raise funds and communicate during this crisis. The U.S. State Department (http://bit.ly/6VhFlp), among others, has promoted the use of text messaging to raise funds for the Red Cross. If you text the word “Haiti” (without the quotes) to 90999, ten dollars will be given to the Red Cross and charged to your cell phone bill. According to the Red Cross this morning, $3 million has already been raised, $10 at a time.
Also, people in Haiti are using Twitter and Facebook for communication: “Twitter & Facebook become 2-way ‘lifelines’ for Haiti” [USAToday]
Thx, Tracy. One can also text “YELE” to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts.
KYMN’s Tim Freeland has a blog post: Google’s ‘Crisis Response’ site activated for Haitian relief.
The redcross.org is my fav. They have a lot of experience for fast and efficient aid.
One of today’s Strib letter writers, on the Haiti situation, is LoGroNo contributor John George.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/82118397.html?page=2&c=y
From the letter:
Thanks for the alert on that link, Paul. I’m working on a blog post related to John’s letter so let’s save further discussion of it till then and keep this comment thread just for discussion of the earthquake, it’s aftermath, aid, recovery, political ramifications, etc.
Thanks, Griff. I was thinking about starting post on that, but I haven’t had the time to mess with the program.