Columnist Susan Snyder: Charities heed call of donors

Friday, Sept. 9, 2005 | 3:31 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

WEEKEND EDITION

Sept. 10-11, 2005

New Orleans' water pumps had barely lurched into action when the Internet blog critics emerged asking people to remember the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks before donating to the American Red Cross.

As donations to the Red Cross amounted to $503 million and continued to climb this weekend, critics warned donors to remember the 2001 terrorist attack aftermath, in which the public chastised the charity for giving survivors and victims only $154 million of the $543 million collected in its Liberty Fund.

According to 2001 Washington Post reports, survivors and family members of victims of the 1989 San Francisco Bay Area earthquake, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 1997 Red River floods in Minnesota and North Dakota and the Sept. 11 attacks received only fractions of the money donated to the Red Cross by people wanting to help.

But Sept. 11 changed a lot about how we repsond to disaster.

And although the changes resulted in the mind-boggling bureaucratic clutter of a new Homeland Security Department and a rearranged Federal Emergency Management Administration, it actually improved the Red Cross.

"We are now donor-specific. It's been that way since 9/11, from the top down," Penney Towers, director of the Red Cross' Southern Nevada chapter, said. "If someone says the check is for Hurricane Katrina, then all of it goes to Hurricane Katrina and nothing else."

Some of the money is used to open shelters and feed survivors, volunteers and emergency workers. In Katrina's aftermath, the Red Cross has opened 675 shelters for 161,000 victims and provided 6 million hot meals, according to statistics released Friday.

The charity also provided $2,000 debit cards to thousands of hurricane victims. Locally, the Red Cross is giving $360 clothing stipends to the firefighters and other first-responders from New Orleans, who will be visiting Las Vegas on a rotating basis for some rest and relaxation.

"They didn't have anything left but the shirts on their backs," Towers said.

She bristled upon hearing that a Thursday Associated Press report, which included tales of some emergency workers playing slot machines and blackjack, also notes that the Red Cross had provided spending cash.

"The money was given as checks made out to each firefighter. But it was for clothing," Towers said. "Our intent and agreement with the New Orleans fire chief was that the money was to be used for clothing."

It's the standard Red Cross clothing stipend. But, Towers added, there is no way to know whether people spend it on socks or slots.

When any group is blessed with so much of the public's trust and cash, we should think before giving. Check out how charities stack up at www.give.org or www.charitynavigator.org.

If the national groups still make you edgy, look for those serving only the affected areas, such as www.louisianahelp.org.

Of course, the best way to have prevented New Orleans' disaster would have been to elect leaders who heeded the decades-old warnings about protecting wetlands, upgrading levees, and who empowered the poor rather than reward the wealthy.

Charity that begins at home is no good if it ends in the voting booth.