Creation of fund for HAL staff

[localady]

I keep hoping to see some kind of announcement from HAL to establish a fund to return staff members to Indonesia. As I understand it, currently these staff must pay their own travel expenses. I for one would be happy to donate to a fund for the staff members, even if it was frequent flyer miles as were done for the military personnel. These people have done so much to make my vacations spectacular, I sure would like to give back something. Anyone have any idea how we can do this????

P.S. I have put a call into HAL Seattle to find out if a fund has been established and the specifics. Will post any response I receive.

[sail7seas]

Please post any info you get. I certainly would want to assist any crew people whose families are suffering.

 

 

We will be donating to Relief Agencies but I would very much want to specifically help crew members.

[localady]

I just had a conversation with Tiffany Bergman at HAL who promised to move the request "up the line" and get back to me. I told her there were many of us out here in the "cruising community" that I believed would be willing to help.

 

S7S- That was my feeling also, that we could donate to a relief organization but that it would be nice to "give something back" to those that have made our vacations so special.

I promise to post any response I receive from HAL when they respond. :cool:

[ryansmemom]

Chimera and I would definitly be interested in donating to any fund HAL sets up to aid HAL employees and their families.

 

Linda

[RuthC]

Localady, that is such a generous thought. Please do let us know if and how we can give a little back to those who have given us so much .

[Krazy Kruizers]

localady

Please do let us know as soon as you hear something from HAL.

Our newspaper listed quite a few charities this morning that people can contribute to.

 

[Little Feet]

We want to help out, too. I'll be watching for any notice of a fund. I think we can interest a lot of cruisers in a collection for the crew that make our vacations on the sea so special.

[Oceanwench]

What a wonderful idea!

[localady]

So wonderful to see the responses from everyone!! If I do not hear back from HAL within a day or 2, I promise I will follow up! I just knew there were many generous cruisers on this board who would be happy to help in any way they can!!:D

 

Thank you to all!:cool:

[rmmm]

I thought this was already in place. When I was on the Maasdam this summer a collection was taken up at Mass. The priest announced that part of the collection went to the fund for crew members who needed to fly home in emergency situations. Surely Holland America could set up a way for people to make contributions to this fund by credit card.

[localady]

I had not heard of the fund, but if HAL already has a mechanism in place, it's even better!!

 

Still waiting to hear back from HAL, I shall let you all know the response I get from them.:cool:

[Sage]

Localady,

 

I too would be interested in making a donation to a relief fund. Please keep us posted as to what you find out. Thanks for starting this wonderful idea.

[Jacqueline]

Count me in !

[doone]

Count me in as well.

[iluvcruzin]

Great idea. However, there are some adminstrative costs associated in fund raising which is why many corporations refused to manage them. I wonder if there is an international non-profit organization that could assist the crew and accept donations?

 

(I tried to get a major corporation to set up a fund once a few years ago and ran into all sorts of red tape. There are legal issues etc.. In the end it was not possible. :( )

[CruiseMark]

If you want to donate outside of Localady's efforts (which I applaude), Amazon has set it up so it's very easy to donate to the Red Cross fund for this disaster. Go here for more details: http://www.amazon.com/paypage/PX3BEL97U9A4I

[lcruiser]

Count on me too. Hopefully something will be done by HAL as they are the best thing going for Holland America.

[HeatherInFlorida]

Obviously we are all anxious to help not only our friends from Holland America, but the thousands who have suffered such enormous loss following this catastrophe. Help is going to be needed for many months, even years, to come.

But I do want to remind everyone of the utter disaster after 9/11 when fund after fund was set up and so many people in their strong desire to help out as quickly as possible, sent their money off to fund managers they knew nothing about. So much of the money did not get where it was supposed to go.

In our haste help out, please let's do the best we can to be sure that the monies will be managed by an extremely reputable administrator and that there is as little administrative expense as possible involved.

[iluvcruzin]

I agree Heather

[localady]

One would hope that HAL would see through the administrative tape and "donate" some personnel time to accomplish this. My concern about sending my donation to a large international organization is that I don't know much about them, other than the Red Cross.

 

I would hope that if we were to establish a fund for the HAL employees that HAL would be willing to administer it despite the red tape and possibly match the donations to some extent. If I hear nothing today I will again contact Ms. Bergman. I know that it takes time to "move up the ranks", but in this time is important.

[hdawson]

Given the conditions in the areas effected, it's probably best for the crews to stay with the ship. Mass burials is the only thing prudent at a time such as this so no way to be there for a funeral as we know it. There could even be a ban on passenger flights other than relief teams. Communication systems are out of order. A lack of water and other necessities of life.

[localady]

I agree with you HDawson, but in the months to come, I strongly believe there are going to be crew members that need to return home to handle their personal business and help their families. The idea is to begin the fund raising while this is "fresh" in everyones minds, then to assist the crewmembers in the months to come to deal with this terrible tragedy.

[RevNeal]

I can't help but think and pray about my room steward from the Zaandam in Sept/Oct. He was from Sumatra.

 

I sure hope HAL either establishes a fund to help their own people, or contributes resources to one to help at least the people of Indonesia.

 

Thus far, I and my congregation have given funds to UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief. 100% of donations go to relief efforts in South Asia.

 

http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/emergency/southasia.stm

 

The American Red Cross Tsunami Relief fund, managed by Amazon.com, is another good source. Also, I understand that the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions has geared up operations too. Unfortunately the P.I.M.E. website is under reconstruction at the moment, but they give this contact information:

 

PIME Missionaries

17330 Quincy St.

Detroit, Michigan 48221-2749

 

phone: 313-342-4066

fax: 313-342-6816

email: info@pimeusa.org

 

Another possibility that just occurred to me is Mother Teresa's organization, which has plenty of people in India and is famous for helping the poor, ill, and suffering. Here's their web site:

 

http://www.cmswr.org/member_communities/MC.htm

 

And, of course:

 

Catholic Relief Services: 800-736-3467, http://www.catholicrelief.org

Direct Relief International: 805-964-4767, http://www.directrelief.org

Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres: 888-392-0392, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org

International Medical Corps: 800-481-4462, http://www.imcworldwide.org

International Orthodox Christian Charities Middle East Crisis Response: 877-803-4622, http://www.iocc.org

[localady]

I just got off the phone with Ms. Bergman from Holland America. She stated that thankfully, not many of their crew members were affected by the tragedy!! HAL has offered free communications, etc. for those crew members affected and will work with those crew members and their families. She suggested that we consider donating to the Red Cross- Indonesia or any other charity that would benefit the victims directly.

Ms. Bergman asked me to thank all of you for your prayers and thoughts for the crew and said that the crew was very touched at our response. On board there are donations being made to the various staff.

It is truly a blessing that not more staff members were affected by the tragedy. We will continue to pray for those who were affected.

I appreciate RevNeal's suggestions also for donations and urge you all to donate. Thank you all for your responses!

[iluvcruzin]

Thanks for the followup localady. What you did to try and set up something was extremely compassionate. Thanks for the list RevNeal. It's nice to get a list of options.