January 26, 2010

HELP FOR HAITI

Help for Haiti
Ways to help, including a Fingerprints trade-in fundraiser

We hate to see people struggling to deal with disasters, but when it's an earthquake it seems to strike a bit closer to home (if that seems like a pun, it's not meant to) and we'd love to encourage you to send some good thoughts and, if you can, a little financial support, to help them out a bit. Hopefully, we won't ever be in a position to need the help ourselves. We're proud to institute Trade for Haiti, a new program where you can donate used CDs, books, DVDs, LPs, or other goodies we would usually take for store credit, and have the full credit value donated to IMC (More about them below).

In trying to make sure our donations do the most good, we've done a little scouting and feel pretty good about International Medical Corps. They're based in Santa Monica, they have an A+ rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy, and their Better Business Bureau rating is solid. They have earthquake experience and specialize in helping affected communities set up long-term solutions that will help beyond the initial services provided by other agencies.

To donate directly, or for more information on International Medical Corps visit their site directly.

If you donate between now and the end of February, using your AMEX, American Express will kick the fees back to IMC, which is likely a few extra points. For a complete list of charities AMEX has approved check out this site.

You can also donate through IMC by texting "Haiti" to 85944 on your cell phone.

Charity
Watch - for information about others providing assistance.

TRADE FOR HAITI - If you are unable to throw cash to help, but you can spare a few records from your collection (or other stuff we buy/sell), we are happy to announce that starting this weekend we will be accepting trade ins to benefit Haiti. Any donated trades will be paid to International Medical Corps and where the usual cash value is usually 60% of the trade-in value, we will be posting all donations at the higher store credit value. We will continue to do the higher charity payout as long as we can afford it, at which point we will have to go back to our regular cash/credit split, but we will keep the program going as long as we think it's helping.