Local Red Cross ready to help in Haiti

    The agency is assembling a team of qualified volunteers.

     

    A local relief organization is already mobilized to send aid to Haiti following a massive earthquake there.

    The Philadelphia branch of the American Red Cross is hard at work assembling a team of volunteers to go to Haiti if they are needed. Tom Foley is head of the Red Cross in Philadelphia. He says calls have already gone out seeking specialists in this type of disaster.

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    Foley: When we have a disaster of this magnitude, The international federation organizes the response and they will tell us very quickly we need a thousand American Red Cross disaster volunteers or what it is and we need ones that need a particular skillset so we’re already checking on the availability of our volunteers.

    The Red Cross is also working with the Philadelphia Hatian Community to help people here find out if friends and relatives survived the devastation. Foley says for now, the agency is just asking for monetary donations – not blood.

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