On The Third Hand

Our Re$Ponse is ‘Incredible’

Contributions are pouring in to the American charities involved in the massive relief effort in South Asia at an “incredible” pace.

Americans are using the Internet, the mail and the phone and dropping by local relief-agency offices to donate — to help the survivors of the killer tsunamis get back on their feet and rebuild their lives, their homes and their communities.

“The response has been just incredible,” noted American Red Cross spokeswoman Jackie Flowers, who reported that $18 million in contributions had been received since Sunday.

The donations are coming from everywhere and everyone — including the tourist on the street, said Leslie Gottlieb, of the Red Cross’s New York chapter.

She said a tourist passing her office near Lincoln Center stopped in and gave $100.

At CARE USA’s office in Atlanta, “a stranger just walked into the office with a check for $10,000. And our offices around the country are reporting similar experiences,” said Ahuma Adodoadji, director for emergency humanitarian assistance.

Looks like individuals have (as of when this was written) pretty much matched the government’s contribution (I added up to about 30mil just from the agencies mentioned). But it won’t count with the UN because it was given freely, rather than taxed out of our pockets.

Command Post has the definitive list of charity links.

[update] Forget the match. Make that about 4 times the amount. Check out this post. Yeah… we Americans are real stingy. As are our horrible American Corporations. As Charles said, “We don’t expect our Government to spend our money for us. We take care of that ourselves.”