A friend of mine trained in Search and Rescue had their trained dog search for bodies in earthquake zone. Other friends in S&R and Emergency Response have told me repeatedly: It really takes special training, skill development, and temperament to be able to make it worth the funds to haul your carcass to a disaster site and maintain yourself there. The situations are dire and deeply disturbing. Most of us can help best by contributing funds to trustworthy organizations, putting money and support behind those skilled, optimize, trained and talented in this work. For widescale volunteer organizations, sometimes relieving their local workload by volunteering your time allows their skilled personnel to go help in your stead as well.
I'd rate Red Cross and UNICEF pretty highly myself. I know I cannot in good conscience spend money on vacation and hobby plans right now when I know the need is so very great in Haiti, so some money I had planned to go to those is going to disaster relief instead. I donated to the Red Cross International Relief Fund and plan to keep making weekly donations until I feel I have donated 'enough' (as far as generously what I feel I can afford, which will be more this year than in prior years, I think).
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branchandroot
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Date: 16 January 2010 22:28 (UTC)I'd rate Red Cross and UNICEF pretty highly myself. I know I cannot in good conscience spend money on vacation and hobby plans right now when I know the need is so very great in Haiti, so some money I had planned to go to those is going to disaster relief instead. I donated to the Red Cross International Relief Fund and plan to keep making weekly donations until I feel I have donated 'enough' (as far as generously what I feel I can afford, which will be more this year than in prior years, I think).