Haiti Relief Efforts
& How to Help



Make a financial donation to the American Red Cross International Response Fund:

Mail check to:

American Red Cross
P.O. Box 37243
Washington, D.C. 20013

or

American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley
2200 Avenue A
Bethlehem, PA 18017

American Red Cross honors donor intent. Please indicate "Haiti Relief" on the memo line.

How to reach loved ones

For inquiries about relatives living and who have citizenship in Haiti, please be patient and call repeatedly until the lines clear or contact other family members who live nearby. Telephone, Internet and other communication lines are often disrupted in times of disaster.

If you're trying to reach a U.S. citizen living or traveling in Haiti, you should contact the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens Services, at 1-888-407-4747.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has established a family linking Web site, enabling persons in Haiti and abroad to search for and register the names of relatives missing since the earthquake. www.icrc.org/familylinks

Can I volunteer to go to Haiti?

We are not accepting volunteers to travel to Haiti. If you would like to volunteer for the local American Red Cross, please call 610-865-4400.

Can I donate clothing and food?

The Red Cross discourages donations of collected goods and individual items for disaster relief.

  • The cost of processing and transporting these types of donations often outweighs the cost of the donated items themselves. Donations of collected goods require time, money and personnel to accept, clean, sort and distribute them.
  • The influx of unsolicited donations distracts relief workers on site from critical emergency response activities - feeding and sheltering the affected population.
  • In addition, because we cannot anticipate what these spontaneous donations of collected of items will include, we cannot ensure that the donated products will be appropriate for the relief effort or that there will be enough of a particular item to distribute them equitably.
  • Shipping donated goods is costly and particularly difficult in the aftermath of a disaster. Routes into disaster sites are often damaged or impassable and can be clogged easily with shipments of non-priority items.
  • The Red Cross makes every attempt to procure items locally, which minimizes transportation and storage expenses. By procuring goods locally, the American Red Cross can also ensure the items distributed to disaster victims are appropriate for the culture and diet.

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