When I last posted (yes it's been a while, but this time I actually have a good reason) I was at the BlogHer conference in San Jose. It was a great conference but for me the best thing that came out of it is that I met Cooper Munroe and Emily McKahhn.
Cooper and Emily are the founders of The Been There Clearinghouse, an award-winning blog dedicated to connecting in-kind donors directly to people who lost everything to Katrina. Two days after the levees broke in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, they appealed to the readers of their mom blog to come to the aid of people of the Gulf Coast. Since then, Clearinghouse has functioned as a community cork board, allowing thousands of people to donate goods and services directly, person-to-person, to people who lost everything to Katrina and have since relocated to every state in the country.
Quite an accomplishment!
My chance meeting with these amazing women came at just the right moment. Here at momready we had been talking about wanting to use our growing visibility to help a worthy cause. I felt that although running the business was definitely satisfying I still had the need to give something back to the community. I immediately spoke to Cooper and Emily and signed on to start Los Angeles chapter of the momready clearinghouse.
When I returned home from the conference we began to research the number of evacuees living in Los Angeles and was shocked to discover that over 5,000 people displaced by Katrina have found a home in Los Angeles -- a staggering number of victims living in our own backyard. We immediately began building the website and reaching out to social service agencies.
Which brings me to today's announcement...
momready.com is proud to announce the opening of the momready.com Los Angeles chapter of the Been There Clearinghouse. On the site, Katrina evacuees currently living in L.A. can connect with individual donors locally and around the world in an online public forum.
By posting their offerings online, readers can reach out to evacuees, who in turn can respond and receive the items and services offered. Evacuees can also post their specific needs for donors to respond to.
Today, I am attending the the Katrina L.A. County Area Long Term Recovery Committee's Katrina Anniversary Event at the Salvation Army in downtown Los Angeles.
While there I will be introducing the new Clearinghouse to evacuees and and logging them onto the site to either respond to donations or to log in their specific needs. It would be wonderful if there were already some posts up with items people have to donate --- Yes, this is where you come in.
If you have any items or services to donate, please post them on the Clearinghouse. The items can be new or gently used and can include, clothes, toys, school supplies, furniture, appliances... anything you may have.
With your help, we hope to offer a new resource for hurricane victims and really make a difference in their lives.
Thank you in advance for your participation. I really appreciate it.
CLICK HERE to find out more and log onto the momready Hurricane Clearinghouse.
This is wonderful news, and I am glad to see that you picked this way of "giving back" as a momready.com outreach effort.
I'm pleased to have a connection to a company that is not afraid to exhibit a concern for others. Good work...and thank you.
Joe
Posted by: Joseph Begalla | August 28, 2006 at 05:03 PM