Have I mentioned that FedEx is just freaking amazing?
The help they have given Spirit of America and Operation Give is incredible, but Operation Give's Plunge and Chief Wiggles - who works for FedEx - has taken it up to a whole new level.
He's diverting Operation Give's resources for the next few weeks to the tsunami victims, and offered Operation Give's Salt Lake City Warehouse, and FedEx has offered both to take a planeload of goods to the Indian Ocean area, but to pick up and transship those donated goods from your house to the warehouse.
Now I wouldn't advocate FedExing flats of water bottles, but here's what they are trying to collect or purchase (hint - you can send them money):
Hygiene items
Medical supplies: Bandages, alcohol, disinfectants, etc.
Water purification
Packaged food
New Cooking utensils
Water containers
New Clothing
New Shoes
Tarps
You can sent money to them by Paypal (click here), or you can assemble some of the required NEW ITEMS ONLY, and call them at the number on the linked page, and they will arrange FREE FedEx shipping.
Again, be conscious of what you're shipping; don't spend $50.00 of FedEx's fuel to ship $10.00 worth of items.
But here's another quick-reaction way that you can make a difference on the ground over there.
A.L.,
Great effort by FedEx. I've read the list three times and the only item that I'm uncertain of is water purification. For the rest, Asia is the low cost producer. I wonder if Fed Ex might turn their supply chain guru's loose to work with Wal-Mart, Lowe's and Home Depot purchasing people to identify lowest cost Asian producers and publicize their findings?
What constitutes a small emergency water purification setup? It should be enough to have fuel, a generator and the water purifier, all on a pallet. Comms gear might be helpful, too. I'll bet it would be pretty easy to come up with a standard pallet sized kit to drop off to these poor folks, as well as a fuel bladder, of course. We really need to develop a trailerable pebble-bed nuclear power plant for these disasters.
Hey, what about 802.11g and a cell tower? We could make it a castpoint and net them in. ;-)
It's a beautiful thang ;->
REHABILITATION TO THE VICTIMS FOR TSUNAMI CRISIS THROUGH INCOME GENERATION PROJECTS
Name and Address of Applying organization :GRACE FOUNDATION
6/93,Teachers Colony, South Eachampatti, Enam Kalpalayam Post,
Manachanallur Taluk, Trichirapalli District, Tamil Nadu State, INDIA,
Pin: 621005, E-Mail : grace_foundation@yahoo.com
Legal Status of the Organization : Registered as a Not-for –profit Non Governmental Voluntay Charitable organization under the Societies of Registration Act. Our Registration Number is 54 of 1996. Our organization is registered under the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Government of India under Foreign Contribution Regulations Act. Our FCRA Number is 076040258.
Bank Details : Account Number is S.B.10864 at INDIAN OVERSEAS BANK, Samayapuram Post, Trichirapalli District, Tamil Nadu, India 621112 infavour of GRACE FOUNDATION.
CONTACT PERSON : S.N.JOSEPH SELVARAJ
DESIGNATION : General Secretary
NEED OF THE PROJECT: As you are Aware already the fisher man community in India are poor, downtrodden and marginalized. The Tsunami waves cleared all their wealth and their huts in to the sea water. Now they don’t have clothing, food and shelter. Clothing and food is given by our local voluntary groups and our government of Tamil Nadu is providing food to them. But nobody is not in a position to give permanent shelter to them due to our financial condition India is a third world and developing country. By time being they are accommodated in the community hall, schools and colleges in nearby.
Yesterday we, a group of people personally visited all these area in the East Coast Areas from Poompuhar, Cavery poompatinam. Vanagiri, Chattrapadi, Tranquebar, T.R.Pattinam , Karaikkal, Nagore, Nagapattinam and Velankanni. Most of the affected people are belongs Fishermen Community especially Christians both Catholic and Protestant few are Hindus and Muslims.
PROJECT PLANNED :Our Grace Foundation is planning to give rehabilitation projects to them through Income Generation Projects. As you for Income Generation projects we need Rs.5,000/-($ 116 USD) for one Person to start small scale micro business. We have planned initially to help 100 families in the Nagapttinam District where our project area is located for Tsunami Victims rehabilitation. The Total project cost is $11,600 United States Dollars.
We, the Board of Directors of Grace Foundation to help in the rehabilitation of the Tsunami victims.
Yours sincerely,
S.B.Florence,
Secretary.
03.01.2005
STOP giving money to these Western-hating, Osama-loving, child molesting, human trafficking nations! On 911 they danced around in the streets and passed out candy - and that's all we should be sending them.
Is this still available? I am a fifth grade teacher in Provo, Utah. My class just collected 536 stuffed animals that we would like to send to the children of Sri Lanka. We just have no funds to ship them. Does anyone know how we could find help for this?? Please'"