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Local Red Cross chapter ecstatic with response
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Posted on Jan 09 2005
American Red Cross-NMI Chapter is ecstatic over the efforts of various organizations, individuals, as well as the local government units in aiding victims of the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged 12 countries in Asia and Africa last Dec. 26.
The local ARC chapter’s executive director John Hirsh was especially grateful for the help they had received during the past couple of weeks.
“I was excited to see what we can do at a grass-roots level,” he said. “The community support…people would dig into their pockets and show support with $1 or $2, and it’s not us doing a whole fundraising campaign, but its just spontaneous giving.”
Hirsh said that because the tragedy is an international concern, the ARC relies on the generosity of the community.
He also recognized the $1 donation drive initiated by Gov. Juan N. Babauta. The Commonwealth’s chief executive said during a press conference Monday that a dollar could go a long way towards providing the relief needed, citing that if everyone in the Commonwealth donated $1, “we could raise up to $70,000.”
Hirsh said that donations continue to be received and that he is required to report contributions to the American Red Cross twice a week and send them off once a week.
“Everything [monetary] that comes to Red Cross, we send out.”
Earlier, Hirsh explained that the ARC-NMI Chapter prefers money contributions instead of in-kind, citing that boxes of in-kind donations were about to be donated but were kindly refused because of the amount of work needed to handle the donations before shipping them out.
“It will take us tremendous time,” he said during an earlier interview. “The way it works with Red Cross, the logistics aspect of shipping in-kind donations is tremendous.”
Owners of Taro Sue went to the Red Cross office last week to drop off 1,700 pieces of clothing and the Thai community reportedly was ready to forward boxes they received from other donors.
Earlier in the week, Hirsh said that in Saipan alone the Red Cross has already collected cash donations close to $15,000, and overall there are about $80 million in cash donations gathered by ARC America since the disaster happened.
