Thank you for your interest in helping our coast during this massive oil spill.
GIVE: The United Way Gulf Recovery Fund will provide emergency assistance,
such as help with food, rent and utilities, and support long-term
recovery efforts to rebuild lives devastated by the disaster by
addressing educational, financial and health-related challenges. In
addition, funds will enable all who need help, or want to volunteer
help, to have an easy, single point of contact by dialing 2-1-1.
Volunteer: An aggressive cleanup operation is under way to secure the source of the spill, recover the spilled oil, and protect environmentally sensitive sites.
Oil is a toxic substance and dangerous if handled improperly. Only specially trained responders may clean it up or dispose of it. We ask volunteers to avoid any site where the spill has made landfall and keep children and companion animals safely away.
The initial response will aim at stopping the leak and containing the spill. It might appear to the public that a response has not been initiated but these sequential steps minimize the risk that areas already cleaned might again be contaminated.
Please register at www.volunteerlouisiana.gov to receive updates and information on any volunteer opportunities as they are identified. You may also register with Gulf Response Involvement Team (GRIT) for some beach mitigation efforts: www.lagulfresponse.org There are now some oil spill-related opportunities emerging in the New Orleans region. For a listing of these opportunities, please visit http://tinyurl.com/25b5tm6.
Please note that some of these opportunities will help with individuals affected by the oil spill. Many people's lives have been displaced by this event. While you may be interested primarily in environmental issues, please consider the human services opportunities as well.
NOTE: Volunteers must be trained before participating in any direct contact oil spill response. You must be at least 18 years old, able to follow both written and oral directions, and meet both the training and physical requirements for the role you would fill. BP is providing all of this training. Volunteers must be trained to rescue and care for the injured wildlife. Unauthorized individuals can, even with the best of intentions, harm irreparably the affected animals, some species of which are not accustomed to any kind of human interaction.
We appreciate deeply the nation's outpouring of support and the many offers of help. Working with the Unified Command and our partners in the communities, we can recover our shorelines and communities and maintain the safety and security of our volunteers as well as the general public.
Depending on your locations and availability, you may also want to reach out to www.volunteermississippi.org, www.servealabama.gov or www.volunteerflorida.org to see what opportunities they may have. LA Serve will continue to keep volunteers updated as the situation changes. Again, thank you for your interest.
