Jun 17 2008
Red Cross Borrowing Funds to Help Flood Victims
The American Red Cross domestic relief fund is in serious need of an infusion of cash. With massive flooding in Iowa and more expected further down the Mississippi River, the need for the charity to be able to keep emergency crews in the field and keep providing aid to the flood victims is an extreme high. So, the American Red cross is borrowing money so that they can keep operations active.
The news is heart-breaking and phenomenal. The most generous nation on earth and we can’t afford to help our friends and neighbors at home. In fact, to do so, the Red Cross is taking out loans.
The problem seems simple enough to fix. We need to stop sending money overseas and worry about our homeland. I know, we can’t and won’t do it and to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to. On the toher hand, when other nations decide to use their resources for improvements at home, we applaud it. Why aren’t we doing likewise?
In March, southern Illinois, parts of Missouri and Kentucky got more than 12 inches of rain in a day. Monsoon rainfall is not normal here and it resulted in significant flooding. The federal government refused to acknowledge the area as a national disaster area, so the store owners and those left homeless by the flood are on their own…or get minimal aid from the Red Cross. One friend who was displaced by flood waters for 6 days, her home had no electricity for much of that leading to rotting of everything in her refrigerator, and whose car was overtopped by the 4 foot deep flood waters, received $93 assistance from the Red Cross and a whopping bill for the deductible on her car insurance. The car still doesn’t run right, the bugs in her home are horrendous and she is struggling to recover.
Her problem is a microcosm of the issues that now face Iowa and will soon face parts of Illinois and Missouri as the Mississippi River flood spreads south. And, that doesn’t even touch on what we as a nation face. The estimates right now is that the flooding will destroy about four percent of the season’s corn crop, so peopole nowhere near the water will be facing the wrath of Mother Nature.
And, the Red Cross, traditionally the place to turn in times of need, is out of money. Maybe, just maybe, we really do need to remember that charity begins at home.
