American Charities Seek Aid for Indonesian Quake Relief

By Brennen Jensen, Candie Jones, and Caroline Preston

More than 50 American charities are providing medical care, food, and other services to victims of last month’s earthquake in Indonesia, but their fund-raising efforts have thus far met with varied results.

Save the Children, for example, has received $102,000 toward its goal of raising $3-million.

The charity said the response was coming in faster than after the earthquake in Pakistan in November.

For instance, it said that an online appeal helped it raised close to $70,000 in the four days after the Indonesian earthquake, $4,000 more than in a similar period after the Pakistan temblor.

The Pakistan earthquake killed an estimated 80,000 people — more than 10 times the number killed in this most recent disaster.

Mike Kiernan, a spokesman for the group, said the early response from donors was particularly encouraging given that the earthquake happened over the Memorial Day weekend.

“It’s a weekend when people really concentrate on their families and not so much on what’s on the TV news or in the newspaper,” he said. “We are not disheartened at all by the response.”

For other groups, donations have come in at a much slower pace.

Lutheran World Relief has raised just $6,900, and Church World Service has brought in less than $5,000 from individuals. Lutheran World Relief has committed $25,000 from an emergency-response fund to help pay for its work.

“It’s been deafening silence,” said Neil Frame, of Operation USA, which has received only a few hundred dollars thus far for the earthquake. “The story line has been a phone not ringing.”

Many organizations cautioned that it is still too early to measure donor response because they are just beginning to send out their fund-raising appeals or have additional appeals in the works.

Tsunami Experience

The disaster response has been facilitated, in part, by the experience many American charities gained by working in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunamis.

International Aid, Islamic Relief, Lutheran World Relief, Operation USA, and many other organizations were able to quickly deploy staff members who were working on tsunami rebuilding in Banda Aceh and other parts of Indonesia to Yogyakarta, near where the earthquake struck.

Emily Sollie, a spokeswoman for Lutheran World Relief, said: “The fact that we had an office there and had already established relationships with three other agencies on the ground from the tsunami certainly made the response a lot easier and faster.”

Many American organizations are also beginning to look beyond the immediate relief stage toward longer-term needs, including rebuilding homes and providing medical care.

Islamic Relief, which has allocated more than $900,000 for immediate needs, hopes to raise $3.7-million for rebuilding efforts after the earthquake. The charity has currently raised nearly $300,000 in cash and $1.6-million in products.

“It will take months to rebuild,” said Salar Rizvi, finance and administration director at Islamic Relief. “We don’t want to just be there to get food in the short-term. We want to help these communities try to get back on their feet.”

Other fund-raising results for organizations providing relief to earthquake victims include:

• Mercy Corps has raised $662,000.

• Catholic Relief Services has raised $410,000.

• World Vision has raised over $400,000 and hopes to raise a total of $1.2-million.

• The American Red Cross has received more than $350,000.

• CARE USA has raised more than $200,000 and has set a fund-raising goal of $5-million.

• AmeriCares has raised more than $133,000.

• U.S. Fund for UNICEF has raised more than $130,000.

• Direct Relief has received $10,000 from individuals and $100,000 from the company Amgen.

• Oxfam America has raised nearly $106,000.

• International Medical Corps has raised $50,000.

• Church World Service has received more than $4,900 from individuals, as well as $6,000 from the Christian Church Disciples of Christ denomination. The organization has set a goal of $1.2-million.

• Relief International has raised more than $8,000.