Helping our Houston Friends
At Luma, we contract with subject matter experts across the country to help write curriculum. Over the past couple of weeks, several members of our Houston team have been either directly impacted or personally know someone who has been impacted by Hurricane Harvey. When you live in Indiana, it can be difficult to know exactly how you can help others in this situation.
One of our subject matter experts who lives in Houston provided us with the following letter. If you want to know about different ways you can help, we hope you take the time to read it.
The best things people can do to help with the Hurricane Harvey relief effort are to donate blood and donate money.
Houston is home to the largest medical centers in the nation. And they are in the heart of the flooded area. Not only do they have immense amount of trauma coming in, they still need to serve the patients already there when Harvey hit. We. Need. Blood. And Houstonians can’t give it easily here, as many of our centers are closed or flooded. Even if you can’t give at a Red Cross Center, the blood you donate near you will help free up blood to be sent to TX in other places. My mom, brother, and I gave at a non-Red-Cross center in Austin; it was packed (which was awesome!), but it only took an hour and a half for all three of us to get through the entire process, including the rest / snack time after the donation. They told me they had just sent a large shipment of blood to Houston that morning.
Here are ways to donate money:
- Houston Food Bank – https://secure3.convio.net/
hfb/site/Donation2?df_id=9314& 9314.donation=form1&mfc_pref= T&s_src=HB&s_subsrc=harvey& src=lb - HEB Disaster Relief – https://www.heb.com/static-
page/Disaster-Relief?cid=H-O- PHP-BG-Disaster-Relief. HEB is much more than a local grocery store chain. Here is an article about their impressive disaster relief efforts: https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/inside-story-what-took- keep-texas-grocery-chain- running-chip-cutter - ASPCA – https://secure.aspca.org/
donate/pf-201708bn1-p2 - Houston Texans’ JJ Watt’s Houston Flood Relief Fund – https://www.youcaring.com/
victimsofhurricaneharvey- 915053 - Red Cross – https://www.redcross.org/
donate/hurricane-harvey - Houston Humane Society – https://www.houstonhumane.org/
(Give)/giving/designate-your- gift/hurricane-harvey-fund - Covenant House home for homeless and trafficked youth – https://www.covenanthouse.org/
hurricane-harvey - Volunteer Houston – http://volunteerhouston.org/
- Texas Library Association Disaster Relief Fund – http://www.txla.org/news/2017/
08/disaster-relief-and- support-for-libraries - Greater Houston Community Foundation Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund – https://ghcf.org/hurricane-
relief/ - Here is a good list of some additional Houston-specific charities: https://www.houstoniamag.com/
articles/2017/8/29/donate-to- these-local-houston-charities
Also, check any large grocery store or pet store chains to see if they have any drives or donation options. I know Petsmart has its own charity and they’ve contributed to the relief effort.
