It is wonderful to see that we have a lot of members willing to pitch in to do what ever they can for the victims of Huricane Katrina.

Please give your comments and answer the following questions so we can start to make a difference:

1~Please suggest what kind of events/shows etc. we could have to raise money for the victims of Katrina.

2~Please recommend an agency that we will donate the money to. I will take your recommendations and post a poll for everyone to vote on.

Hi, I suggest giving the money to the red cross. They are very reputable

1 - I think the auctioning on ebay is a great suggestion, we can also do silent auctions at our next Meetup or through our garage sale message board, I can help promoting our events on the different internet bellydance groups I belong to. I agree that small different shows might bring more funds than one big event.

2 - My pick would be the Red Cross

I am working on the Sunset Show to raise money for the relief. Sunset Place is already raising money for the relief although in different ways, but I'm not sure which organization they are donating to. I would like to donate to the Red Cross, but I have to work through the legalities with Sunset.
I agree with Medina that we need to do a lot of other things as well. In the meantime I'm waiting to hear if we can use the show to get donations and such. If we can we will need a lot of dancers...the longer the show, the more donations.
Will keep you posted.
Portia

Medina,

On # 1
I think that Portia from Belly Motions has a great thing going at the Sunset Place, because we will be able to reach the Non-Bellydance public and ask for their donations, if we do a show, the majority of the attendees are bellydancers, if it's a show out in the public eye, we can probably collect much more. I have some ideas that would play in very well.

On # 2
I have been researching several organizations, Stacy O'neill forwarded some links to me, such as:

http://www.fh.org/200...

http://www.brfoodbank...

These are organizations that seem do a great job, utilizing most of the donation $ towards their charity instead of towards administration. However, after some review I feel that the Red Cross would be our best bet. The Red Cross is the organization at the forfront of these dissasters.

Our Main Meetup offices have placed their link on their yellow bar above for all of us to conveniently donate through Meetup. It is my suggestion since we all come together through the meetup, that we use the Red Cross and that we use the link above.

i am suggesting at the ft. lauderdale meet-up tonight that we set up a fund (bellydancers for relief or something like that) and link to all of the meet-ups around the country to send donations or tithe under the funds name and then donate it to a charity. we were looking at the red cross, second harvest, hope international and food bank of baton rouge.

I have another idea...I work at Ryder and if we donate to the Red Cross through them they will match the contributions. This would be a great way to duplicate our efforts. Ryder will do the matching for donations made through Septembr 30th.

I suggest donating to The Humane Society of the United States's (HSUS) Disaster Relief Fund.


Last night on the news I saw footage of two guys being rescued off their roof, but their dog was left behind. He was just standing there wagging his tail and waiting to be let on the boat...

www.hsus.org

Roshana, that's who I personally donated to! I would also like to add to the list The Salvation Army too.

I think the Red Cross is the best bet, as they are already there and very experienced at the task.
Also ask your companies if they will do matching donations and make at least an initial gift very soon. If we raise more money through shows, or other means we know it will still be needed later.