NEW YORK CITY — For New Yorkers hoping to help victims of Hurricane Matthew, there are a number of local and national charities already gathering donations for the affected families in the Caribbean.
The Category 4 storm hit the southern coast of Haiti particularly hard, and that country's government estimates that 350,000 people are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.
Hurricane Matthew is believed to have killed at least 400 people, reports said. At least four were also killed in the Dominican Republic.
The storm comes only six years after Haiti was hit with a powerful and devastating earthquake. Haitian Paper Haiti Libre reported that 55,000 people were still living in huts and tents from that disaster when Matthew hit on Tuesday night.
Now members of New York's Haitian population and others from across the city are mobilizing to send aid to affected areas.
Here are a few of those organizations collecting donations. Be sure to do your research on the charity organization of your choice to make sure you know where the money is going. You can check out sites like Charity Navigator for ratings and information on the best ones.
A nonprofit focused specifically on disaster relief, All Hands Volunteers is collecting donations for both the victims in Haiti and displaced people in South Florida. In addition to collecting money, the organization is also looking for volunteers.
The local charity in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens is led by members of Brooklyn's Haitian community, who have been anxiously tracking Matthew's path for news of back home. The group specializes in providing support for people suffering from psychological trauma as well as training professional in trauma assessment and intervention.
The Haitian charity has long been an established source for humanitarian aid to the Caribbean nation. It is accepting monetary donations and also collecting critical items like batteries, water purification tablets and first aid supplies.
► Heart to Heart International
Instead of sending money, this charity organization sends on-the-ground medical and emergency workers to transport injured people to hospitals. On its website the organization pledges to us 100 percent of designated donations — including overhead expenses — to Haiti disaster relief.
While Save the Children has long worked to build schools in Haiti, it is now deploying emergency response teams to help children who have been injured or left stranded during the storm.
As one of the country's major charity organizations, Direct Relief has been consistently donating to Haiti in the wake of the 2010 earthquake and the Zika virus. The team is now mobilizing to get donations of supplies and medicines to Hurricane Matthew victims.
