Donating to help Haiti - and a HFB challenge

[Complexity]

For anyone who wants to donate money to help those suffering from the earthquake in Haiti, I thought I'd list a number of sources to make it easy.

I'm also going offer a challenge to my fellow Boxers. I tried to think of how much to donate. And while every dollar counts (and no one should be discouraged from donating anything, even if it is $1), I feel I am so much more blessed and wanted to offer more. But how much? That's when I came to a number.

I will donate $1 for every gallon of my combined tanks. So for me, that is:

90g cichlid tank
75g planted tank
29g planted tank
20g planted q/t
5g rcs tank
---------------------
219g total = $219 donation

I would like to challenge my fellow HFBoxers to do the same. Total up the number of gallons of water for all your tanks and give $1 for every gallon.

I realize not everyone can do this so I encourage others to do what they can. Make up their own challenge (maybe $1 for every tank, regardless of the size). But for those who can do this, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to figure out a dollar amount to donate.

We have it so good that we can afford so much beyond just the necessities. We can afford to buy our tanks, stands, lights, substrate, filters, decorations, fish, fish food, water changers, and so much more -- just for our own personal pleasure. We can share just a little of what we have to help those in such great need.

I will post a list of places for donations in my next post.

[Navarro]

That's very nice of you! My wife and I are donating to http://www.worldvision.org they make it very easy to do it.
I personally survived a 7.4 earthquake and small tsunami back in September 1985 and until now it has been one of the worst things I have ever witness in my life so please help in any way you can.
Regards,
Luis

[Complexity]

Donation list obtained from Haiti earthquake: How to help


Donating via text message:
Text HAITI to 90999 – American Red Cross – Donates $10
Text HAITI to 25383 – International Rescue Committee – Donates $5
Text HAITI to 52000 – Salvation Army – Donates $10
Text YELE to 501501 – YΓ©le – Donates $5
Text HAITI to 864833 – The United Way – Donates $5
Text CERF to 90999 – The United Nations Foundation – Donates $5
Text DISASTER to 90999 – Compassion International
Text HAITI to 20222 – The Clinton Foundation – Donates $10

Relief organizations:
Action Against Hunger, 877-777-1420
American Red Cross, 800-733-2767
American Jewish World Service, 212-792-2900
AmeriCares, 800-486-4357
Beyond Borders, 866-424-8403
CARE, 800-521-2273
CarmaFoundation
Catholic Relief Services, 800-736-3467
Childcare Worldwide, 800-553-2328
Concern Worldwide, 212-557-8000
Cross International, 800-391-8545
Direct Relief International, 805-964-4767
Doctors Without Borders, 888-392-0392
Feed My Starving Children, 763-504-2919
Food for the Poor, 800-427-9104
Friends of WFP, 866-929-1694
Haiti Children, 877-424-8454
Haiti Marycare, 203-675-4770
Haitian Health Foundation, 860-886-4357
Hope for Haiti, 239-434-7183
International Medical Corps, 800-481-4462
International Rescue Committee, 877-733-8433
International Relief Teams, 619-284-7979
Lutheran World Relief, 800-597-5972
Medical Teams International, 800-959-4325**
Meds and Food for Kids, 314-420-1634
Mennonite Central Committee, 888-563-4676
Mercy Corps, 888-256-1900
Operation Blessing, 800-730-2537
Operation USA, 800-678-7255
Oxfam, 800-776-9326
Partners in Health, 617-432-5298
Project HOPE, 800-544-4073
Rural Haiti Project, 347-405-5552
The Salvation Army, 800-725-2769
Samaritan's Purse, 828-262-1980
Save the Children, 800-728-3843
UN Central Emergency Response Fund
UNICEF, 800-367-5437
World Concern, 800-755-5022
World Hope International, 888-466-4673
World Relief, 800-535-5433
World Vision, 888-511-6548
Yele Haiti, 212-352-0552 – Wyclef Jean's grassroots org – Text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5 via your cellphone

[Complexity]

I chose to give my donation to Doctors Without Borders. I think they are an excellent organization and are very much involved with helping offer much needed medical attention to the victims of the earthquake. They were already in Haiti, but all of their hospitals were damaged and are now unusable. They are bringing in an "inflatable hospital" which is incredible. It will allow them to sterilize rooms for surgery. They have already identified 500 people who are in immediate need of surgery, and I'm sure that number will climb much higher.

These are men and women who have worked very hard to obtain the educated to become medical doctors and nurses, and they have used this to help people in need all over the world. I think they are an excellent organization, and I'm happy I am able to offer them some support.

[Complexity]

Please donate what you can to help these people.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34892995/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

Haitian doctor takes 100 patients into home
At makeshift triage center, doctors scramble to help suffering victims
The Associated Press
updated 8:40 a.m. CT, Sat., Jan. 16, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It wasn't long after Tuesday's earthquake leveled nearly all of the houses next to Claude Surena's that neighbors started showing up at his doorstep.

For years, the 59-year old pediatrician had treated the sick at his two-story hillside home near the center of the Haitian capital.

Suddenly, he was running a triage center, treating more than 100 victims on his shaded, leafy patio with food and supplies salvaged from ruined homes.

His undamaged house provides at least a minimum level of comfort away from the devastation β€” even for the dying β€” while thousands of others in the city lie in the dirt under a merciless sun waiting for attention from a handful of doctors.

"I have to thank whoever brought me," said Steve Julien, who says the last thing he remembers before he blacked out was rescue workers calling his name as they dug through the rubble of his house.

When he woke up, he was lying on a mattress inside Surena's soothing oasis.

"It was a blessing from God my house is safe," he said. "We at least have been able to do something for everyone."

Injured sing hymns
The patients show physical and emotional wounds from having their homes collapse on them. Julien, 48, is among the least severely injured, with only a few scrapes and a sore body. Others have compound fractures and festering wounds. Surena said at least 10 patients are in critical need of more substantial help.

The injured sing Christian hymns as they huddle close together beneath sheets strung up as tents, but the earthquake still haunts them. Aftershocks rattled the city as recently as Friday morning.

"Sometimes they just start crying. We still get some movement," said Surena, who is also the local district chairman for Haiti's disaster relief agency.

The conditions at his home are far from ideal. Plastic buckets serve as toilets, and for some patients Surena can do little more than change dressings on infected wounds. But they are better off then many in Port-au-Prince, the capital city of 3 million people.

Surena earned his medical degree in Haiti and spent a year at the University of Illinois training in neonatology. He has been tending his ward with the help of two other doctors, including a Lake Worth, Florida-based gynecologist, Frantz Python, who was working in the area when the earthquake struck.

'She was really suffering'
Eighteen of their patients have died. No case hit Surena harder than a pregnant woman who died shortly after she started having contractions Tuesday night, likely from internal hemorrhaging. Despite a rudimentary Cesarean-section, they could not save the baby.

"She was really suffering," Surena said. "The most difficult thing emotionally is that you know how to do it, but you don't have the materials do it."

The patients say they know Surena is doing his best.

Florene Francois, 19, was trying to soothe her fussing 18-month-old son, Rick Joey, on blankets in a corner of the patio between Surena's grill and a built-in bar. She said she is fine despite the scrapes on her face, but she worries about a deep gash on the back of her son's head.

"They just don't have what they need for the stitches," she said.

A 39-year-old tailor, Roger Hubert, had bandages on wounds and a sling for a severely broken arm. His bones have not been reset because there is no X-ray machine available.

"Considering the materials here, they are taking good care of us," Hubert said.

The supplies of food, water and medicine were quickly running out. Surena drove himself to the airport Thursday after neighbors cleared away debris blocking the only road down the hill, but his hopes of finding help were dashed in the confusion of so many arriving aid flights.

"So many planes. You don't know where to go and who to talk to," he said.

Still, he is optimistic more help is coming. He said Rotary International has pledged to send supplies including shelter boxes for the patients, and he expects more doctors to come, too.

Meanwhile, he keeps everyone at his house because they have nowhere else to go. He sent three patients in urgent need of surgery to a hospital on the airport road Thursday, but he took them back in after they were refused admission.

"They would have left their bodies on the street," Surena said.