Blood, money donations needed for Sandy victims

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Volunteers are heading to the East Coast in herds to help get the East Coast back on its feet.  The Associated Press reported Wednesday afternoon that 6.5 million homes and business are still without power along the East Coast.  Four million of those outages are in New Jersey and New York.

According to Katherine Mac Aulay, the chief financial officer at the American Red Cross of Northeast Indiana, a dozen of the organization's volunteers have already headed to take part in the effort.  Those people have been split up to help in New Jersey, New York, and West Virginia.

The American Red Cross is asking for donations to help with disaster relief.  Donations will help the Red Cross provide shelter, food, emotional support and other assistance.  Anyone interested in donating can click here , call 1-800-RED-CROSS, or text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

Other organizations may also be seeking help.  However, the Better Business Bureau warns people to always make sure they know the charity is legitimate.

"When you have these, Katrina, a tsunami, 9/11, you see at lot of new charities pop up on the web, soliciting funds and we want to tell people to be very cautious of that," said Mike Coil, the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Northern Indiana.  "Especially when they tell you 100 percent of that money is going to go to the victims in the east.  A hundred percent never goes to the victims, so be leery of that."

Coil said Wednesday that there have not been any potential scams in the area.  He added that he thinks people are getting better at making sure they're donations get put to a good cause.

"You want to make sure that you're not giving it to an organizer where only two or three percent of the funds are getting to where they need to be, and that the rest is being kept by the organization," Coil said.

Blood donations are also in a high demand.  The storm has already canceled more than 300 American Red Cross blood drives in 14 states along the East Coast.  Many more drives are expected to be canceled over the next several days.  The loss results in at least 9,000 blood donations.

"That's large, because 9,000 units translates into potentially three components of each of those 9,000 units," Mac Aulay said.  "You could look at that, multiplied to 27,000 potential donations, and that's just the beginning.  It's going to be a ripple effect.  It's going to be much more than this."

Click here to look for an upcoming blood drives in the area.