January 19th, 2010 | 
Today is a day of blogging unity on the subject of the Haiti earthquake that struck just before 1700 EST on 12 January 2010. As to the unity part it’s being orchestrated by the folks at BloggersUnite which a site that brings unity to bloggers on a subject to harness their collective power in an effort to make the world a better place. Today in particular is a collaborative effort to bring awareness to how we can help those in need while bringing a personal perspective to the ordeal. I’m not the only blog, in fact, as of this writing I’m one of 215 registered blogs to the cause of the day. Follow the link above or click the BloggersUnite banner (below) to find out more.
For those who don’t know what I do I work for the United States Coast Guard and currently reside in our Atlantic Area Command Center- in a nutshell the unit I work for owns (read: has top oversight) most the boats, planes, and people working in the Haiti area (the Coast Guard ones at least). From my vantage point I can tell you that what you see on the news and hear on the radio about the effort to help are, in my view, less than half of what’s actually being done (there just aren’t enough media to go around I guess). Coordinating relief efforts from around the world is no simple task, in fact, the U.S. Coast Guard takes the task of ensuring everything is being done from its end so seriously that it has activated what’s called an Incident Management Team (IMT) to keep track of the hundreds of Coasties we’ve sent to help on a 24/7 basis. I noted last week that the Coast Guard was the first to arrive and I foresee us staying for quite some time… we just work that way. And though I’m more than proud of our men and women of the USCG we’re only a small part of the massive military might (check this out for a good list of who’s there) that’s deploying to help one of the poorest nations on earth- but the governments of the world can’t do this alone. This is were you come in.
Where do you start? Well as default starting places be sure to check out WAMU.org and/or The White House’s Haiti Relief Effort sites. Both list reputable donations sites and are easy to navigate. You can also check out the official site of USAid for more options on helping. And if you’re still worried about the sites you can give to feel free to check out the very trusted site of Consumer.gov for some safe options. Update: Another super great option for donations is Team Rubicon. Yes, it’s outside the norm- but reliable from what I’ve been told (all former military and medics). With these options though you should note that the no matter what organization you choose they’re all asking for the same thing- your help via cash donations (like G.W. Bush says “Just send your cash…” (far from his best speech- but it IS true)).
I hope if you find this list and thought useful you’ll share it, or at the very least click on one of the donation links to do you part. And please note that it’s so easy to give that even I did it!
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