American Red Cross pledges $10 million to assist communities impacted by earthquake in Haiti

From press release

The American Red Cross has pledged $10 million to assist communities impacted by the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, and is prepared to take further action as local responders assess the situation.

The American Red Cross has made available all of the relief supplies from its warehouse in Panama, which would provide for basic needs for approximately 5,000 families.

Five disaster management specialists from Peru, Mexico and the United States arrived in the Dominican Republic and will travel by land to the disaster zone. These individuals join the 15-person staff already have on the ground in Haiti, as well as thousands of local Red Cross volunteers.

As airports begin accepting relief shipments and more commercial flights, tarps, cooking sets, hygiene items and other supplies from the American Red Cross warehouse in Panama will be distributed to an initial 5,000 families.

The American Red Cross has an extensive partnership with the Haitian Red Cross, which is expected to lead the Red Cross response to the earthquake.

The American Red Cross has staff on the ground in Haiti who provide ongoing HIV/AIDS prevention and disaster preparedness programs. At this time, all three American Red Cross staff in Haiti have all been reported safe.

The Haitian Red Cross was founded in 1932 and is one of the primary organizations in the country responding to disasters. Although earthquakes are less common, Haiti is frequently impacted by hurricanes including those in 2008, and the Haiti Red Cross has developed experience in disaster response because of those disasters.

If you would like to help the Red Cross in its relief efforts, you can text “HAITI” to 90999 and a donation of $10 will be given to Red Cross to help with relief efforts.

Also, the American Red Cross is not assembling or recruiting individuals for teams of volunteers to respond to Haiti AND IT IS NOT soliciting or accepting small group or individual in-kind donations of materials, clothing or other items.

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