Hurricane Sandy Relief Effort

Several organizations are working throughout the region in various capacities to help those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

For more information and volunteer opportunities, please visit the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey at:  http://www.unitedforimpact.org/ways-to-engage/volunteer.

For those interested in volunteering:
Please keep in mind the following recommendations:

• Affiliate with existing non-profit organizations before coming to the disaster area. Immediately following a disaster, a community can become easily overwhelmed by the amount of generous people who want to help. Contacting and affiliating with an established organization will help to ensure that you are appropriately trained to respond in the most effective way.
• Do not self-deploy until a need has been identified and the local community impacted has requested support. Wait until it is safe to travel to volunteer sites and opportunities have been identified. Once assigned a position, make sure you have been given an assignment and are wearing proper safety gear for the task.
• Be patient - recovery lasts a lot longer than the media attention. There will be volunteer needs for many months, often years, after the disaster - especially when the community enters the long-term recovery period.

For those interested in donating:

• Cash Donations: The best way to support survivors of Hurricane Sandy is to make a financial contribution to the voluntary organization of your choice. Cash offers voluntary agencies the most flexibility in obtaining the most-needed resources and pumps money into the local economy to help businesses recover. Cash donations are also very useful in situations where supplies must be acquired quickly. This is the most efficient way to make an impact with your donations. For information on how to donate, visit www.nvoad.org
• In-Kind Donations: One of the biggest issues around disasters is the amount of unsolicited item donations that start to come in immediately. It's better to wait until communities assess and confirm their needs before you start to send things in. At that time, specific needs will be posted at United Way’s Community Action Center: www.unitedforimpact.org.

For additional information, visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Volunteer & Donate Responsibly page.