A Plea For the Tornado-Stricken Mid-South

By Cernig

By now you've all heard about the tragic loss of life in the mid-South due to storms and tornados yesterday. At least 50 dead, 100 injured and large areas of five states looking like disaster zones.

Our good buddy Monkeyfister is right in the middle of it, and is shouting out to Blogtopia for some help. He suggests:

American Red Cross
Mid-South Chapter
1400 Central Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
901-726-1690

And:
United Way of the Mid-South phone in a donation at (901) 433-4300.

They take DIRECT donations, so you can skip all the National-level waste and delay, AND they serve nearly every community in the effected radius.

I don't ask for much from my readers, but I sure would appreciate some link love on this post-- or better yet-- if you'd work-up something of your own linking to the Mid-South Red Cross Chapter to help this area get back on it's feet, re-building, and healing. It'd mean an awful lot to many. A bit of a small-blog swarm would be a mighty thing.

Thanks in advance.

and adds:

As the area affected is so broad and detached, and everyone in the Country was distracted by politics last night, as yet, there is no central assistance hub set-up. [These are] the two agencies with the broadest radius to help the area right now. Both take DIRECT donations.

A small-blog swarm on that post (or this comment) would be greatly appreciated by more people than just me. I can't describe how wide-spread the damage is down here. It's enormous. The Media, per usual, is only just now waking up to the situation, after their Super-Duper-Let's-All-Wet-Our-Pants-Together- Tuesday Political Hangover. Like NOLA, these are REALLY poor folks down here, and have nothing, and nowhere to go.

A short post about this at YOUR Blog, linking either to my post, above, or directly to the two Orgs mentioned in the post above, would sure be a big help, and would be greatly appreciated by many people who are relying on help. They are all that we have right now.

I just donated a deer's worth of ground venison, along with the 100 pounds of rice and quart-sized ziplock bags that they said that they needed at the United Way Mid-South Food Bank, when I phoned them this morning. Their pantry is BARE, and I'll be loading them up with all the potatoes, rice, veggies, bags, and other staples that I can fit in my truck tomorrow.

I'll echo MF's plea- if you've a blog, link his post and send a shout out to your readers for some help for these poor folks. If you are a reader, pass on the links to MF's posts by email, please. Let's get the word around and help.

My donation to the Red Cross is already on its way.