Help for Haiti

[Brent Deines]

If you have an extra buck or two please consider donating to one of the many charities who are there helping out in Haiti, and if you are a believer please pray for all those who have suffered losses due to the recent earth quake. They have quite a mess to clean up and every little bit helps!

If you do donate be sure you know a little something about the charity you donate to. Things like this bring out the best and the worst in people, so there will be many scams out there waiting to take your money if you are not careful. If you don't know if a charity is legitimate or not check them out with the BBB or one of the many charitable giving watchdog sites, or let me know and I will give you the contact info for a couple of good charities that are already helping in Haiti.

"Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."
Philippians 2:4 ESV

[GLASSTIME]

That's awesome Brent! I will be in touch soon. Are you guys doing any type of donation drive? Giving money to a charity for Haiti would be more resting if I knew of a well established and trustworthy orginazation. Please let me know!

[Brent Deines]

If every forum member would contribute $10 we could collectively give $20,000, but I've tried to organize donation drives in the past and have been very disappointed in the response, so now we just contribute what we can and encourage others to do the same. I really like Living Water International and they are already working with a number of other organizations to provide clean water in Haiti so we will continue to support them in this effort. I'm also partial to Medical Teams International as they are based here in the Northwest and are sending a team of "volunteer" medical professionals along with medical equipment this week. Even the plane that will take them has been donated from what I understand. Water and medical attention are vital to the survival of hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti and both of these charities have an excellent reputation.

http://www.water.cc/

http://www.medicalteams.org/sf/Home.aspx

[candyman]

Sorry I wsn't aware of your post sooner. I sent money to the American Red Cross last week during their fund drive on CNN Larry King Show. Over $8 milllion raised in about 2 hours. I am afraid of being suckered in to an organization that only sends the minimum required or has a high administration fee. I noticed Brent that you do charity work for water purificaton and wells. I was in Haiti and Cuba drilling wells back in the mid 70's, as a combat engineer, while in the Marine Corps. The people didn't have enough clean water and the living conditions is about the same now as it was then. I still have state of NC licenses for wells and water polution. Candyman

[Brent Deines]

Candyman,

First of all, if I have not said it before, thank you for your service to our country!

I agree with you that we have to not only be givers, but responsible givers, which means taking the time to check out any charitable organization that we donate to. That is in fact how I found Living Water International. I was donating monthly to another organization with a similar mission which I still believe does a good job, but they did not rate as well with the BBB and charity watchdog sites as LWI does.

I must confess that I have not checked the BBB or other charity watchdog sites for information on Medical Teams International recently, but my brother worked for them in the past so I have a pretty good idea of what they do and how they do it. Still, I always encourage people to do their own research so they are not donating to an organization who spends 90% on administration, or one that fails to provide easy access to financial information.

I used to work on water well drilling crews in Montana many moons ago, so maybe that is where some of my passion for clean water comes from, but more than anything I just think it is nearly impossible to stay healthy, let alone see prosperity, without clean water. The problem with all the money our country and others have dumped into Haiti over the years is that there is so much corruption that most of it never gets to the intended recipients. Billions have been donated, yet as you say, there has been very little improvement. It's wonderful to give, but we need to make sure those we give to are accountable or we are just wasting money.

Are you saying that drilling the wells and purifying the water did not improve life for people in Haiti? If so, why is that? Were the wells purposely destroyed or contaminated prior to this earth quake? I've seen the benefit of providing clean water in many areas regardless of local corruption and economics, but I suppose it is possible that the corruption in Haiti is so bad that even the water is controlled by the thugs. If you have any information about that I would like to know.

$8 million in 2 hours for a single organization...amazing! There are a lot of very generous people out there and the money needed to rebuild Haite will be provided. I just hope we can find a way to keep it from going into the wrong hands and being wasted.

[AutoGlassEssentials]

an idea we are trying maybe some of u can find this helpful as well. We are doing a ten dollar donation to help for Hati for every customer that uses promo code help for Hati with windshield repair. We get some free advertisement with radio etc fully tax deductible and for a good cause. We are doing a picture with name for donations to hang on the wall by our shop area to show customers how many people do repair, showing them hey its not some scam it is no cost. Hope this idea helps some of yall..

[Brent Deines]

I like that idea. Whether it brings in new business or not will be something you will have to report back to on, but you are are doing what is right and good, which in my experience will always end up helping your business.

[Frank EU]

Hmmm, I thought that there already was a thread re Haiti, called Help for Haiti.
It is dated januari 14 and posted by Brent Deines.
Why not posting your (possitive) idea there?
It would keep the forum more clean.

[Brent Deines]

Frank,

I think AutoGlassEssentials probably started a new topic because his efforts included promotion for his business, which is a valid reason to start a new topic, however I agree that the topic is similar enough that it's cleaner to keep these posts in one place.

AutoGlassEssentials, please let me know if this is a problem for you and we'll work out a solution. Thanks

[clear vision]

Hi, guys I'm new to the forum and to the business so i've been brousing around. I noticed this write away. My church has been real involved with hope for Haiti childrens ministry for several years now. This is an orphanage in Haiti with 100 kids now. Danita the director of the orphanage and is an angel this is truly her pasion she has dedicated her life to these kids.If anyone wants to give to a great organization to help haiti, I can not think of a better one than this. You can lookup there website and send them all the money you can she's trying to take in as many of the new orphans as she can. If you don't want to take the time to get all the information on the organization you can send me a check made out to danitas children and I will personaly put the check in danitas hands july 17 2010 when I go to haiti. for a ten day trip to put on a summer camp for the kids.

Billy West