Is BP Making Louisiana Charities Beg?

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Yesterday, Catholic Charities New Orleans announced that it’s out of money to provide relief to oil-spill victims.

For the last several months, the organization has been giving grocery vouchers and help with rent and utilities, as well as mental health counseling, to some 19,000 families of fishermen in Louisiana. BP gave Catholic Charities $1 million in May, but since the services cost up to $120,000 a week, the group says that money is gone. Catholic Charities heads a coalition of local organizations that have requested $12 million from BP to help them continue providing aid, but so far to no avail. “They just keep saying, ‘We’ll get back to you, we’ll get back to you,'” says Margaret Dubuisson, Catholic Charities’ director of communications. “We don’t know when, which is a problem.”

So what does this mean for people who’ve been counting on charity when their BP claims checks have been late or drastically reduced? “We might have to move to a model where only the neediest get help, and those that have need but aren’t the most in need don’t get help,” Dubuisson says. “In fact, we’re moving to that model in two of our centers starting next week.”

So far, despite media hype suggesting that the crisis is over, Catholic Charities has been adding new people to its aid rosters every week. At just one center this past Wednesday, says Dubuisson, “200 people showed up for 125 [grocery] cards. We’re still seeing more people than we can help.” Dubuisson says the organization is dipping into meager reserves to keep delivering aid for now, but doesn’t have an alternate source of funding lined up. (The St. Bernard Project, another group in the aid coalition that also offers counseling to traumatized Louisianans, is hoping to win a grant from Pepsi.)

“We’re moving forward delivering the services,” in the meantime, Dubuisson says. “But you can only do that for so long.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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