This is Wendy Harman from the American Red Cross. Perhaps we have not communicated clearly enough – we have SO FAR spent $80 million of the $276 million donated to Haiti relief in Haiti.

The $80 million has been spent on immediate relief needs – water, food, shelter, basic supplies and health support.

Every cent of the $276 million designated by the public to Haiti will be spent in Haiti. We are planning right now for longer term recovery efforts and will allocate that money in much the same way we did for the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

We posted an entry with a bit more information on our blog today:
http://redcrosschat.org/2010/02/22/haiti-funds-allocated-for-current-and-future-relief/

I’d love to stay in contact with you as the relief effort continues and keep you and your readers updated on progress. This will be a long effort.

As for the comment above this one, all American Red Cross disaster services are free and funded by the American public. The only exception to this happened when we made a huge mistake during WWII. We answered a request from the US Secretary of War to charge nominal fees for our services because the British military couldn’t afford to provide them for free – the Secretary was trying to even the playing field and boost morale. This decision has done many years of damage and if we could do it over again we would not have agreed to it.

I don’t know the specific details of the fraud charge also mentioned, but the American Red Cross is filled with good people trying to do good. There are rare instances when someone not so good takes advantage of the American Red Cross and its donors wishes. In these rare cases we make our best effort to work with the judicial system to prosecute and recover any fraudulently used monies.

I hope this helps a little. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Wendy Harmann

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COMMENT: HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG

Thanks for the clarification.

When you read the comments about President Rene Preval’s criminal efforts to block, or steal medicines and food,  you will understand why we sometime focus upon the innocent…only to have the situation clarified, as it was in this case.

Haitians have suffered the Preval government’s theft of everything that isn’t tied down and now face a terrible future as Preval, and his associates steal the very things that are required to save their Nation.

Someone has to do something.

Is there no one out there with enough influence to stop President Preval’s theft of relief supplies???…he did this in 2008 without challenge and continues to amass hundreds of millions in plunder.