Chapter seeking monetary contributions for relief effort.
By: Jill Matthews
WEST WINDSOR Just one day after a powerful tsunami ripped through coastal areas of countries in Asia and Africa, the Red Cross of Central New Jersey has launched a fund-raising drive to help with relief efforts.
The West Windsor-based chapter is asking area residents for monetary contributions to help the relief efforts in areas devastated by the reported 20-foot waves that killed more than 20,000 people, with death counts rising nearly every hour. The funds will be used for relief supplies, financial assistance and personnel, among other things, needed to assist International Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in affected regions.
"As a (American Red Cross) chapter, our primary role is to raise the funds to make this happen," said Paul Carden, director of emergency services for the West Windsor chapter.
The most powerful earthquake in 40 years, whose epicenter was just a few miles off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, produced the tsunami that devastated shore areas of about a dozen countries, including those touching or near the Bay of Bengal, such India and Sri Lanka, and some as far away as Somalia on the eastern coast of Africa.
The central New Jersey Red Cross chapter did not have a set fund-raising goal as of Monday, but already had received about 10 calls about the incident by early Monday afternoon and expected more once word gets out, said Mr. Carden.
It is unknown if there are other Princeton-area organizations raising money or supplies for the victims, though it has been reported that various Sri Lankan and Indian doctors across the state have been collecting medicine and water-purifying tablets, and other groups were beginning to collect cash donations.
Vinita Kapur, a representative for the Princeton chapter of the Association of Indians in America, said her group did not have plans to start its own fund-raising efforts but that it probably would work with the Red Cross drive.
Bombay native Hemant Marathe, a West Windsor resident and the president of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education, said he did not know of any other area organizations collecting goods or money, but that such efforts were usually a little slow to develop.
After a giant earthquake struck parts of India in January 2001, the Central New Jersey Red Cross chapter raised more than $800,000 for relief services for that area, said Mr. Carden. Since then, a few Red Cross personnel have remained in India to continue with ongoing efforts resulting from that earthquake, he said. Those personnel likely will be moved toward the coast to help with this latest disaster, he said.
Donations to the Red Cross for this project can be made in several different ways. To donate by phone, call 1-800-HELP NOW or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish version). Contributions also may be sent to the local chapter, American Red Cross of Central New Jersey, 707 Alexander Road, Suite 101, Princeton, NJ 08540 or to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Internet users can make a secure online contribution through www.redcross.org.

