What Can You Do To Help?

February 23, 1998

Even though everything may seem perfectly normal outside your window today (it does out of mine), Central Florida has just experienced an event that rivals Hurricane Andrew in its loss of human life and number of injuries. Many of you might want to help out but are unsure how and where you can contribute.

I spoke with a representative of the Red Cross of Central Florida, and here's what they need and how you can contact them:

Volunteers:
Medical: With all the injured people, the type of volunteer most needed is trained nurses. If you have this experience and want to help, contact one of the stations at the numbers below. Along those lines, the central Red Cross office also needs phone volunteers to handle the huge amount of phone traffic.

Blood Donors:
With all of the trauma injuries caused by the storms, the blood reserve is being heavily drained, and new supplies are needed. Here are the contact numbers for the collections points:

Sanford: 322-0872, Orlando 849-6100, Longwood 260-9477.

Donations:
Money:
The Red Cross is accepting monetary aid that will be used exclusively for disaster relief, mainly in the form of food for the people left homeless. If you want to help in this way, send a check or money order (no cash) to the Red Cross Headquarters address below. Make the checks payable to American Red Cross of Central Florida, and specify tornado disaster to ensure quickest transferal to the right account.

Supplies:
The Red Cross is also accepting donations in the form of canned and non-perishable foodstuffs, household items, bedding, and baby supplies. The two Red Cross sites collecting these materials are the Mustard Seed @ 578-4565 and the Christian Shore @ 260-9155. Other non-Red Cross sites includes some Wynn Dixie sites and the Wal-Mart on 17-92 toward Sanford.

In case you are trying to find out about a loved one in the storm area, a list of names will be released tomorrow, following the 24 hour moratorium while all the information is gathered.

Red Cross Contact info:

http://www.arccf.org/

Headquarters
5 N. Bumby Avenue
Orlando, FL 32803
(407) 894-4141 Naval Training Center
Building 186
Orlando, FL 32813
(407) 646-4611 Osceola Service Center
849 E. Oak Street
Kissimmee, FL 34744
(407) 847-2780

Dan Leeds
I may have broken the dreaded 30 threshold, but internally I still feel like I stopped getting older some time around 25 or so. Yea, I've become more responsible and maybe even a little more ambitious, but not so much that I've lost track of my guiding ideals or my ability to play. While getting older may be inevitable, aging is much more relative. What else is there? :)