Ever since we were able to travel beyond our block, Tracie and I have been working as hard as we can this week to aid our neighbors and fellow Houstonians: helping with clean-up and gutting houses, babysitting someone’s kids as they deal with insurance, washing flooded families’ laundry, gathering used clothing and purchased goods for shelters and relief distribution centers, etc.

If you’re not in Houston and want to help out with relief efforts, here are our recommended sites to send donations:

Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund
(established by Mayor Sylvester Turner)

Houston Food Bank

Based on our research, these are the best resources for contributing directly. As Tracie pointed out this morning, the Houston Food Bank can stretch a dollar a lot farther than we can by simply going to the grocery store and dropping off food we purchase. And by giving to Mayor Turner’s fund, you can be confident that the money will go directly to local relief efforts.

Tracie and I have already been purchasing and dropping the following items at our local Jewish Community Center and Westbury Baptist Church where they have great systems in place for receiving, sorting, and distributing needed items.

These are the items most requested by local shelters:

blankets
pillows
diapers
feminine hygiene products
baby food
formula
adult diapers

These are the most requested items for local relief:

plastic bins
contractor bags
gift cards (Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, Walmart)
cleaning supplies

If you’d like to contribute to our own donation efforts, please send money to Tracie via PayPal using this email: tracie@sugarpiecustomcookies.com.

Tracie and I will use the money to purchase the above items and then deliver them to the JCC and WBC. And we’ll also use the donations to help families in our neighborhood directly with the same.

Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Robert Shelle via U.S. Department of Defense.