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Black Eye for the Red Cross - Continued

posted by takyon on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the cross-your-heart dept.

bradley13 writes:

A few days ago, I submitted the story about the article criticizing the Red Cross' use of funds in Haiti. Purely by coincidence, I just tripped across an interview on Reddit: the two authors of the article answering questions from the public. To make things even more interesting, Jonathan Garro from the Red Cross also jumped in to provide a counterpoint.

I have no axe to grind here: I donate to the local Red Cross, and am therefore interested to know whether the organization makes effective use of the money it receives.

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  • (Score: 1) by SDRefugee on Wednesday June 17 2015, @11:17PM

    by SDRefugee (4477) on Wednesday June 17 2015, @11:17PM (#197585)

    Why Red Cross has such a black eye, and bad reputation, is that we think there is some sociopathic asshole behind you unjustly distributing funds and profiting from your hard work and dedication to helping those in need.

    Unfortuantly, I believe you're 100% right, but as far as I know, there is NO other organization that does "boots-on-ground/first-responder-after-the-fire-dept" support for victims of house/apartment fires. In pretty much the majority of the calls I've responded to in the 2 years I've been a DAT volunteer, the people that I provide assistance to would have NOTHING... We are called by the fire department and in one particular case, the house was completely consumed, and the family barely got out with their lives, and by the time the DAT team arrived, about a half hour later, the people had blankets provided by the fire department. The Redcross provides victims (we call them clients) with a Mastercard/debit card which has funds for lodging/food/clothing loaded on it. And once the DAT team addresses their immediate needs post-fire, we also have professionally trained caseworkers who contact the clients the next day to address their longer-term needs. I'm retired and if I didn't volunteer for this, usually 2-3 days/week, I'd be bored out of my mind. To make a long story short, I *know* there's corruption in the higher levels of the organization, but it *still* does a VERY important job locally (and nationally, with hurricane/tornado/earthquake assistance)

    --
    America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..