In case I haven't made it clear I'm a pretty big fan of being involved in the community.  I don't just mean sending in a check to the Red Cross or other charity, who would be happy to take your money and from which would you get zero feedback - and in a way that's the point.  In most cases just writing a check while valuable gives you the least return on your money.  I mean actually going out there, being involved in a fund-raiser as either a participant or volunteer, donate blood, work at a shelter (human or animal) there are plenty of opportunities to volunteer and instead of it being just a 'bill' you get feedback, feedback that is worth just as much to you as the time you spend is worth to those who benefit.  Even better is when you combine donating money with actual involvement and involvement may be as simple as being a voice to help get an important message out.

I bring this up because with the recent events surrounding hurricane Katrina everyone has been looking at how they can help.    In the case of InterKnowlogy we were lucky enough to have someone in Emilie Hersh who was involved with pastor Bill Jenkins church group in Normal Heights that actually had a point of contact (POC) out in Mississippi.   Given that they had an actual POC (related churches) on the other end it became possible for them to put together a drive to send materials directly to those in need.  Let me pull a little from a recent article from the San Diegoe Union tribune available here: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050922/news_lz1c22relief.html

"they formed Operation Baby Buggy to collect children's items to take to Hancock County, a rural area in southern Mississippi that got slammed by Hurricane Katrina. She found a truck and a driver. He tapped his contacts back home to clear the way for the delivery.

... The Operation Baby Buggy truck trailer, all 53 feet of it, pulled into a distribution center in Kiln, Ms., Sept. 14.

...Truck driver David Linture said that when he got to the distribution center at the VFW club, members of the Ohio National Guard immediately unloaded the goods. In another part of the center, a line of cars was coming in for care packages."

The nice thing here is that while we could have just written a check, the goods were in some ways more valuable because unless for example people wanted to start using wads of $1 bills to make diapers, the actual diapers were of more value then what they cost because there wasn't anywhere left to buy them.  That's the reason that not just InterKnowlogy but several companies teamed up with organizations that had contacts local to Mississippi and Louisianna to send aid directly where it was needed.