Recovery aid still needed! Florida Keys Relay Race to benefit victims of Sandy

All, a bunch of guys who in our college age years could hardly run for the bathroom are now running 199 miles across the Florida Keys to raise funds to help Team Rubicon bring much needed aid into the hard hit areas post Hurricane Sandy. (donate here) Southern Strides for Sandy Relief - two dozen men banding together to raise funds that will directly go to helping victims, every dollar, 100%!  Whip out those check books, make this part of your year-end donation blitz and if you work for a company that matches- match, match, match!  As always, we are ever so grateful to the many who help across the Country and The World! 

Team Rubicon empowers veterans with a new mission and community through disaster response and humanitarian crises.

Hurricane Sandy Status Update

• Multiple Team Rubicon Regions have been activated.
• Team Rubicon VERTs (Veteran Emergency Response Teams) have been deployed along the east coast are mobilizing to organizing work orders and assist with relief efforts
• TR HQ along with support Regions are providing logistical support for our teams on the ground by identifying shelter, food, supplies, donations and work orders

Immediate Call to Action
We need your help! Please support Team Rubicon in our efforts to serve those affected by Hurricane Sandy by donating, sharing or creating your own fundraising page. 100% of every dollar you donate goes directly to the missions, NO salaries, NO overhead, NO exceptions!

Grassroots group tears down walls!

"On our own we can do good work; together we can rebuild our communities."

The Silver tapers, aka Brown Cross (because you're covered in Sandy's silt and brown) with Silver Tape (they put duck tape around their arms so you know they're volunteers) are looking for help to demo houses and accomplish the unimaginable in a single day.

Another good friend of mine teamed up with this determined group over the weekend.  Droves of SilverTapers showed up to a badly damaged area of Staten Island and they demo'd over 100 homes!  Removing furniture, tearing down walls, and having the care to package the dishes or family photos that still remain.

The SilverTapers  are a group you can join if you're looking for some heart expanding volunteer work to help those still recovering from Sandy and have a weekend day to spare.  Don't forget, as time goes on and those of us fortunate to return to a life reflecting more normalcy and semblance of pre-storm living- thousands upon thousands still need help!

I am told their facebook page is the better resource of the two: www.facebook.com/silver.tapers

How-to Jump-In & Help Locally: Sandy Relief Efforts

I am so thankful people all across the World want to help those desperately in need after Super Storm Sandy and even more-so now that the cold set-in with Athena last night.  Frustrations over energy shortages of all kinds are making the days more and more of a struggle for those who were already laid very low.  Today, a dear friend asked me to post about helping out if you were local!  He has quietly been going into hard-hit areas with less than a handful of people and doing some amazingly good deeds.  The accounts he has written about have been both bone chilling and tear jerking.  His penmanship, thankfully, has drawn interest.  In response to the mighty, mighty pen... here is how you can help if you live in the NYC area and would like to roll-up your sleeves and exercise both your back and heart! 

• Rockaway Relief  is busing people from downtown Manhattan out to the Rockaways, as posted on their EventBrite site:

We’re not a non-profit or charity organization. We are local New Yorkers working in tech, design, fashion, restaurant and hospitality industries who want to empower others like us to help our neighbors when they need it most.

We will be working with the team at Rockaway Beach Surf Club on 87th Street who have assembled a community-run volunteer, donation and outreach command center to help clean out buildings, repair homes and deliver food, supplies, clothing and medicine to people in need.  

• Food Bank for NYC still has 25 spots open for tomorrow's Sandy Disaster Relief in Staten Island
  
• Hands On is requesting for Sandy Relief in Jersey City tomorrow and also has a zipcode search capability to find volunteer opportunities.

• If you would like to do more research and find your own opportunity today, tomorrow or for a lifetime, NVOAD (National Volunteer Organizations After Disaster) has specific state-by-state volunteer opportunities for Sandy Relief Efforts
  

 Thank you all for visiting this simple blog and sharing your generosity with those who are in need!

HTH!

 

Five Ways to Send Aid for Animals After Sandy and Athena

A sad story of a lovely pit mix named Fig made me want to hunt and peck for ways you can donate funds to help the NY/NJ/CT areas' pets after Sandy's destruction and Athena's bitter cold.  Five ways you can help:

1. The Humane Society is coordinating emergency search and rescue and has an emergency fund for this effort.  HSUS Care for Animals after Sandy
2. The ASPCA is providing storm relief to animals in the wake of Sandy and also launched a search and rescue effort for animals in the NY/NJ area.  ASPCA Sandy Rescue
3. Animal Care & Control of NYC : donate or become a foster (training is Monday the 12th)!  They also have a "life line" number set-up for people who may be considering surrendering their pets and keep the pets out of harm's way.
4. Best Friends Animal Society NYC is holding drives to assist shelters in need.  As posted on FB:
   

   Ship items and send gift cards to:
   Best Friends volunteer drive
   c/o Diane Mancher
   One Potata Productions
   80 E. 11th Street, Suite 301A
   New York, New York 10003
   
   Thank you for all you do on behalf of the animals. Please feel free to email me at tammyh@bestfriends.org if you have any questions.

5. Pillows for Paws.  Talent takes old tees and fabric and makes cozy beds for the shelters; they are having a knitting circle this weekend!  As posted on FB:
   

   "November 10th Pillows for Paws Circle. We really need your help and any donations you can give us for Hurricane Sandy furry victims. Bedding, towels, tshirts, cat/dog food, toys, litter, etc. plus it is still our usual meet to create beds for shelter animals. Contact: jen@pillowsforpaws.com if you can volunteer time this Saturday or donate supplies. Thanks! " 

Additional ways to help aid those in need:

10/31/12 Cover of the WSJ showing Breezy Point, Queens, NY

For New York
http://www.newyorkcares.org/

For New Jersey
http://www.amazon.com/registry/wedding/2FDVT8QGKJFYR

The Salvation Army Disaster Relief
Hurricane Sandy Relief
PO BOX 1959
Atlanta, GA 30301
Please designate "2012 Hurricane Season" on all checks.
or online: www.salvationarmyusa.org

Direct Aid into Hard Hit Areas for Sandy Recovery Effort

For those of you who would like to help the recovery effort and the thousands of already needy people who have lost everything they own, have no food, water, medicine, baby supplies, etc., here are WAYS TO GET DESPERATELY NEEDED SUPPLIES DIRECTLY TO THESE FOLKS:

SHIPPING GENTLY USED CLOTHING AND OTHER SUPPLIES PERSONALLY

Senator Vincent Gentile’s office has set up a DIRECT LINE to help the most impacted individuals in Breezy Point, the Rockaways and Brooklyn.

Ship (or drop off) items to:

Senator Vincent Gentile

8802 3^rd Avenue

Brooklyn NY 11209

HAVING AMAZON OR DRUGSTORE.COM DELIVER GOODS DIRECT

Order Food, toiletries, flashlights, LED lights, C and D batteries, baby needs, feminine needs, senior needs, hammers, shovels, brooms, disinfectant, paper towels, scouring goods, etc etc.

(for delivery Wednesday (3.99/item extra) or Tuesday (free with prime) 

And this one is expensive— A GENERATOR.

(you can even order on Amazon! —but if you have one and no longer are using it…)  People are working to save lives by candlelight and it is very hard work!

Here’s ANOTHER Relief Group set up directly in the neighborhoods hit the worst:

Councilman James Sanders, Jr.
c/o Rockaway Revival Center
1526 Central Avenue
Far Rockaway NY 11691

Councilman Sanders told us:  "If you can help with supplies, we will make sure they get out to the community. Each project has people who will go and walk up to bring people food and supplies, and tomorrow we will go set up relief tables in the devastated neighborhoods that lie just above the poverty line in which people lost all of what little they had”

There are thousands who are living in dangerous, cold, unlit, wet and fetid conditions that need your help.  

Send it in.. .and repost this message far and wide.