"Do Not Donate to the Red Cross". Really.

"Occupy Sandy" Distribution Center

This is a much better story than the one I found at Huff Post, which was a little condescending in places.  In any case, it is true that the American Red Cross steals money from donations, which is why storm victims in New York and New Jersey have not seen nor heard from them in all this time.  (If that changes, I will take down this post.)  And also why Mayor Bloom(so-much-money-I-wanna-hurl)berg has told the public NOT to send supplies but rather to send money.  Liner notes for a recent blog talk radio program read:   

 Mayor Bloomberg of NYC told President Barack Obama not to come to NYC to view the damage from the storm. He bragged that he told the President that the visit to NJ would count for NY.

One of the more depressing aspects of the days during the blackout, when I ventured out to charge my cell phone and find a hot spot, was the painfully noticeable absence of news trucks -- anywhere.  That, and there were no taxi cabs south of 14th Street or East of 1st Avenue in Manhattan.   I don't own a T.V. but am told the local news is all but in a media blackout regarding what is really going on (or not) with the people who have been stranded and forgotten.  This kind of neglect is unconscionable and beyond anything we could imagine would take place in our own city.  (ny1 video here.)  -S.C.- 

 P.S. I wish to hell that people would stop using the nickname 'frankenstorm'.

 Occupy Sandy Fills Void FEMA & Red Cross Are Unable to Fill

by Kevin Gosztola for firedoglake.com
November 5th, 2012

One week since “Frankenstorm” Sandy hit the northeastern United States, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg projects twenty to forty thousands New Yorkers homeless. Residents on the Rockaway Peninsula are complaining about the lack of help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A posting at Occupy Sandy Stories described, “Many Staten Islanders feel their borough is being overlooked and ignored by authorities.”

The denunciation of the Red Cross by Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, covered by “Democracy Now!”, largely affirms this feeling of neglect permeating the community:

…I’ve got to tell you, as the borough president of Staten Island, of a half-a-million people, I am disappointed at some of these not-for-profit organizations that collect lots and lots of money from Staten Islanders and didn’t respond, and one of them being this American Red Cross. I have not seen the American Red Cross at a shelter. I have not seen them down south shore, where people are buried in their own homes, have nothing to eat, have nothing to drink.

And yesterday, touring the south shore with the mayor, the neighbors down there that didn’t have electricity managed to put together pots of soup, and they were distributing it to the people down there whose homes were just destroyed. And the American Red Cross was nowhere to be found. So, all the American Red Cross, all these people making these big salaries, these big salaries, should be out there on the front line. And I am disappointed. And my advice to the people of Staten Island is: do not donate to the American Red Cross. Let them get their money elsewhere…

Stepping in to immediately do what the government and private non-profit relief organizations seem incapable of doing, Occupy Sandy Relief has been on the ground. According to The Nation‘s Allison Kilkenny,  ”Occupy Sandy, as the effort has been branded, arose quickly in the aftermath of the storm, setting up local community hubs to dispense water, food and aid, and form groups to help communities pump water from their houses and clean up the vast quantities of rubble left in Sandy’s wake. Distribution centers and volunteer hubs are now located in Sunset Park, Astoria, Brighton Beach, DUMBO, East Village, Lower East Side, Jersey City, Red Hook, Rockaway, and Staten Island.”