Phone traffic has been steady at the offices of the Sacramento-Sierra Chapter of the American Red Cross.
“We’ve been getting a lot of calls consistently. The best thing that people can do right now is to make a donation.”
Spokeswoman Trista Jensen says money’s best because donations of blankets, water and other items can wind up being too costly.
“We don’t typically accept in-kind donations just because of the cost associated with collecting and cleaning and distributing them.”
And Jensen says even though Sacramento area volunteers have historically been sent to help other disaster relief efforts around the world, that’s not in the works for Haiti…at least for now.
“We aren’t currently deploying any local volunteers. We did that most recently for Somoa. But we’re only going to deploy Red Cross volunteers from our chapters in the East Coast – those closest to Haiti.”
The American Red Cross already has three staff members in Haiti who provide ongoing HIV/AIDS prevention programs. All three staff in Haiti have been reported safe.
“We’ve been getting a lot of calls consistently. The best thing that people can do right now is to make a donation.”
Spokeswoman Trista Jensen says money’s best because donations of blankets, water and other items can wind up being too costly.
“We don’t typically accept in-kind donations just because of the cost associated with collecting and cleaning and distributing them.”
And Jensen says even though Sacramento area volunteers have historically been sent to help other disaster relief efforts around the world, that’s not in the works for Haiti…at least for now.
“We aren’t currently deploying any local volunteers. We did that most recently for Somoa. But we’re only going to deploy Red Cross volunteers from our chapters in the East Coast – those closest to Haiti.”
The American Red Cross already has three staff members in Haiti who provide ongoing HIV/AIDS prevention programs. All three staff in Haiti have been reported safe.