It's pointless to ship water around when there's plenty nearby.
Toys are not needed for survival.
There are warehouses full of sorted compact packaged food, virtually no one can cook anything just yet.
There's only one road into N.O and it's not in very good shape and it doesn't exactly go to a modern staffed warehouse full of personel to handle it.
A huge jumble of random goods is a logistics nightmare.
If you've ever looked in the back of a Thrift Store, it becomes apparent that they wouldn't make much selling that spaghetti pile of stuff if it wasn't given to them free and the place manned by vounteers..who, BTW, have first shot at the really good stuff. Sorting through takes a lot of manpower and time.
"People" have can have some really odd ideas about what is neccessary.
With money, you can buy specific goods wholesale, tightly packed in a truck and delivered once with not much sorting and it will be fresh.
With money, you can rent a huge tanker for free water and only transport it a few miles.
With money, you can skim off that nasty cream and pay your professional begger friends to get more money and have lots of meetings.
I donated to the Red Cross and have 30 days to get a refund.
I think I just might do that and turn it over to the S.A.
If the R.C can use money, the S.A can do a better job with it.
I recall that I had a mighty fine free Thanksgiving dinner in Denver a few years ago at an S.A. shelter..well worth the $20 I donated afterwards. [It was the "atmosphere" There's something about having dinner with a cruddy wino that makes the food taste so much better! ;-)]
They didn't even preach to me. [whew!]
I don't remember EVER seeing a Red Cross shelter ANYWHERE.
..or a Red Cross Thrift Store industriously sorting and selling crap back to the middle class to feed and clothe the really poor.
The S.A. knows how to get their hands dirty and "work".
Thanks for the reminder...
Ode
At 11:47 AM 9/6/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>>>>
I went to a red cross meeting last night for those who will be coming to our area last night. I was rather surprised they were refusing to take clothes, food, toys and things, saying they had all they needed, and instead saying to give them money instead. They even said that if you already bought anything, to take it back to the store, and give them them money instead.--=======AVGMAIL-431EF77B1C24======= Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg=cert; charset=us-ascii; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-5C4A77F0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Content-Description: "AVG certification"
Marshall
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