Katrina could prove to be a disaster for finances of local Red Cross chapters

From the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes to tsunamis, disasters inspire the public to dig into pocketbooks and donate to relief organizations to provide food and shelter to disaster victims.

While last year’s hurricanes and the tsunami in Asia prompted impressive generosity from Northwest residents, American Red Cross chapters in Washington and Idaho are suffering for it.

Earlier this year, the Coeur d’Alene office of the Red Cross closed, and two other offices in Idaho scaled back services. The cutbacks were a direct result of Idahoans choosing to donate nationally or internationally, Red Cross officials. said.

Pat Moseley, executive director of the Inland Northwest chapter in Spokane, said most donors don’t realize that all donations earmarked for disasters are allocated entirely to that fund. Not a penny is held back for branch offices that provide aid to victims of local structure fires, floods and wildfires, she said.

Now, Moseley fears that donations for Hurricane Katrina victims will further harm fund-raising efforts here.

“I’m really stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Moseley said. “Mississippi and Louisiana are not going to have the money to support that (the hurricane). That’s probably going to be a $1 billion operation just for the Red Cross.”

Moseley said she knows that her office, which covers nine counties and has a permanent staff of nine, would have a hard time raising funds this fall because most donors believe they have already donated.

As the country reels from Katrina’s widespread devastation, Red Cross chapters are asking that donors split their money between national and state disaster relief funds.

A note on the memo line of a personal check is all that’s necessary to indicate how much of the donation should go to national disaster relief and how much to the state chapter, Red Cross officials said.

“When the hurricane season kicks off we want to help people outside our state, but there are people right here in the state of Idaho who need assistance as well,” said Polly Gorley, spokeswoman for American Red Cross of Greater Idaho.

Because its territory covers southeastern Washington, the Idaho chapter was the lead relief organization for this month’s School Fire near Pomeroy, Wash. It also worked with flash-flood victims in Idaho’s Wood River Valley earlier this year. But fires that put people out of their homes happen every other day, Gorley said.

“Last year we had 240 to 250 disasters,” she said. But the Red Cross disaster relief fund in Idaho is so low that for every disaster the state chapter has to go out and raise money, she said.

The Red Cross is bound not only by duty to aid victims of natural disasters, but also by a Congressional mandate, Moseley said. Despite that, the federal government provides no money to the organization.