REGARDING YOUR DONATIONS:
Please remember that the survivors who are receiving these
donations are humans, just like you, with dignity, love and
gratitude. Please don’t insult/hurt them further by sending junk.
Make sure that items you are sending will empower them to
rebuild their lives. So before you toss it into the donation box
simply think if it is worth donating.

PACKING TIPS:
Here’s a tip when you are preparing items for donation. Please
take an extra minute to categorize things between men, women,
children, toys, household, etc. and put each group in a plastic
bag. Once delivered, this enables easier sorting which results in
less volunteer time doing this and therefore volunteers are able to
do other things.

SHIPMENT INSTRUCTIONS:
Some places are NOT accepting used CLOTHING- PLEASE
DO NOT SEND formal wear, dressy clothing to ANY of the
addresses- this is better left locally (except for kids & larger
sizes & NEW UNDERWEAR & NEW SOCKS) so please
read the lists and consult with any website link which may be
provided: (1) group like items (2) clothes should be DRY or they
will MOLD fast if damp (3) new undies/socks (4) clothes should
be in state you’d be willing to wear them & clean (5) mark
contents on OUTSIDE of box :: UNIVERSALLY
REQUESTED ITEMS ARE: new socks, baby items, &
personal hygiene items (soap, deodorant, toothbrushes, combs,
etc)

Where can donations of collected goods and individual items be
most effective?

Individual donations of goods and collections of items are put to
their best possible use, and have the greatest impact
economically, when they are donated to local charitable
organizations within your own community. Donating locally
eliminates transportation costs and ensures disaster workers are
not overwhelmed with sorting unsolicited donations and are free
to perform priority relief activities. Because these local agencies
are not operating in the crisis environment that characterizes
disaster relief, the charity will have the time sort, clean, and
repair goods and identify how and where they can be most
beneficial. [Source: http://www.redcross.org/donate/goods/ )

Appropriate Ways to Make Material Goods Donations:

If handled appropriately, material donations can add value to
disaster response efforts. To do so, however, it is vital that
donors make contact with a professional disaster relief
organization before collections begin. By doing this, donors can
ensure that their material is actually needed at the disaster scene
and that funding is available to transport it.

Before Collections Begin...

When discussing a material donation with a professional relief
organization, make sure to cover the following points (again,
before anything is collected):

The kinds of material donations that are actually needed: Specific
characteristics, quality, and quantity should be clear, as well as
packing and labeling requirements.

The shipping arrangements, including funding: International
shipping is very expensive, and often cost-prohibitive for material
donations. A source of funding for the shipment should be
identified before collections begin.

The relief organization’s local distribution capacity: The
organization should have resources at the disaster site, or have
partner organizations with such resources, in order to offload and
distribute the donations to the people who need them.
[Source:
http://www.interaction.org/disaster/material_donations.html ]

If you have already collected material to donate to victims of a
disaster, but can’t find an agency that needs these items, there
are a few potential uses for them:

You can register your material in the Center for International
Disaster Information’s (CIDI) database of available material,
which attempts to match offers of material donations with
professional relief organizations. A cautionary note, however: for
all the reasons discussed in previous pages, items with the best
chance of being matched with a responsible relief agency are
those which have been requested by the disaster-stricken
country, are of high-quality and appropriate quantity, and pose
no potential health risk to disaster victims. For additional
information, please visit: CIDI’s Disaster Assistance Information
Collection. (http://www.cidi.org/datain.htm)

You can donate the material to local charitable organizations
operating in non-crisis areas. There is plenty of need across the
United States and in your local area. And material donations
made in the US (in non-crisis situations) do not face most of the
problems described previously: transportation cost, urgency,
cultural appropriateness, etc. Examples of such organizations
include the Salvation Army, Goodwill, homeless shelters, your
local chapter of the American Red Cross, and others. Check
your local phone book for more information.

You can have a yard sale with the collected material, and then
donate the proceeds to the disaster relief organization of your
choice. You could hold the sale via a church or community
group. Advertising it as a yard sale to support the victims of a
disaster might increase patronage.
[Source: http://www.interaction.org/disaster/uses_material.html]