This morning about 100 volunteers came to Direct Relief International’s warehouse to assemble 3,000 Personal Care Packs for local people in need. Direct Relief’s Personal Care Packs contain basic hygiene items like lotion, soap, shampoo, facial cleanser, hairbrushes, combs, tooth brushes, tooth paste, dental hygiene items, basic first aid supplies and other assorted toiletries. Volunteers of all ages helped pack
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Direct Relief is in contact with hospitals and other healthcare providers in the Philippines, assessing the need for emergency medicines and supplies as information surfaces about devastating damage and loss of life following powerful Typhoon Bopha, known locally as Pablo, which hit the Pacific island nation Tuesday. News sources report more than 300 deaths and several hundred injured and missing, mostly on the hardest-hit island of
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Direct Relief  has reached out to partners located in Typhoon Bopha’s trajectory, continuing to monitor the storm as it travels across the southern Philippines. With winds to 160 mph, equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane,  Typhoon Bopha has made landfall in the Philippine island of Mindanao, where two partner hospitals – Valencia Hospital and Mindanao Hospital – are located. More than
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An air shipment of specifically requested medical supplies is scheduled to leave Direct Relief’s warehouse today, headed for a partner organization in Guatemala treating people in and around the area affected by the 7.4-magnitude earthquake that hit earlier this month. The partner organization, Caritas de Guatemala, provides health care and other services for many of the local indigenous Mayan population, a group that consists
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While actively responding to disasters elsewhere, Direct Relief prepared for disasters closer to home this week by participating in the 2012 Statewide Medical and Health Training and Exercise program with the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department and local hospitals and clinics.  Simulating a large earthquake in the Santa Barbara area, Direct Relief responded to resource requests for medical supplies and shelter supplies. As part of the
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As of today, Direct Relief has shipped more than 15,000 pounds of relief supplies, such as antibiotics, nutritionals, personal care products, vaccines and chronic care medicines,  to 17 providers affected by Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania who focus on treating the most vulnerable people in their communities. In total, nearly two dozen shipments valued at close to $500,000 are
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