I've been around on DKos for a couple of years now, mostly a lurker, sometimes a commenter, but this is my first diary. I work for a San Francisco Bay Area company called B&B Industries, and we rent refrigerators to college kids. We are in a position to donate several hundred mini-fridges to victims of Hurricane Katrina. We are working with a D.A.R.E. America shelter (in Houston) to help them place victims in more long-term housing. Many of these make-shift "homes" don't have basic necessities like refrigerators.
We already have a list of 185 families waiting to receive their fridges. We have organized volunteers to load/unload the fridges on both ends of the route. We've even raised the money to pay for the gas, and we have a driver, so all we need is the truck (we're looking for a 24 foot truck).
We have sent out email after email, made hundreds of phone calls, and we hate the thought of these fridges sitting here in our warehouse instead of helping people who are waiting for them!
Please stick with me on the flip
We have contacted all the major truck rental companies at the national and local levels. They say that they don't have any more donations to offer. We've also contacted TV show hosts, radio programs, the Red Cross, OES, FEMA, FedEx, UPS, Direct Relief International, every politian we can think of, and non-profit organizations for possible collaboration efforts in getting the donation there. Everyone passes the buck or doesn't respond to our request for a truck.
Can you believe that no one will step up to help get these fridges to Houston?
(D.A.R.E. America is a non-profit organization so of course it would be tax-deductible.)
My partner, who would be the driver, has never before so fully committed to a volunteer effort - but now he is becoming increasingly discouraged, because we have been working for a couple of weeks now with no results. I also have found it to be disturbing that a gift-in-kind of this magnitude (worth thousands of dollars) is unable to make its way to victims. I've never had to work this hard to make a donation before! We were hoping to leave for Houston this week.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
I know that the hurricanes seem to be fading in people's minds, and new disasters have come to our world, but people in Houston really need refrigerators. If you know someone who has a truck in the Bay Area, please let me know. Or maybe you have a connection to a truck rental company?
Thanks for reading, DKos is an awesome and inspiring community.
Allyson