For those who would like to contribute to the relief effort but don't trust or don't know enough about many of the relief organizations involved, I will personally vouch for the ability of Catholic Relief Services to get things done.
CRS provides relief services in over 80 countries.
It is one of the largest relief organizations in the world, and it has an incredibly low overhead to boot: the last time I checked, almost 95% of the money it received when right back out on the streets.
Their link is here: http://www.catholicrelief.org/
Their financial statement is here: http://www.catholicrelief.org/about_us/financial_statements/index.cfm
Another great organization is Food for the Poor. They normally help impoverished people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. They do have a special fundraiser going for Hurricane Katrina. They had one for the tsunami, too. Anyway in 2004, 96% of all donations went to programs that help the poor. So if your interested you can donate online at:
ReplyDeletewww.foodforthepoor.com