The Illuminated Donkey

When it was revealed that The Red Cross was planning to spend some of the almost $850 million collected in its Liberty Disaster Relief Fund on preparations for future attacks, as opposed to giving it all to victims of September 11, it ignited a huge controversy that led to a Congressional hearing and the resignation of the charity’s president, and a pledge by the group to disperse the fund as the donors intended.

The end result of that pledge? An almost-desperate, door-to-door effort to find people who were inconvenienced financially in some way by the attack in order to write them a check.

[Harriet] Grimm learned she was entitled to a piece of [the Liberty Disaster Relief Fund]. "I didn’t lose my job, and I didn’t have a family member die," Grimm says. But the attacks did force her to pack up her family, leave their apartment and stay with relatives and friends uptown for 10 days. "It’s been a trauma," she says.

Grimm met with the Red Cross volunteers and brought a list of her property losses and expenses — acupuncture, psychological counseling, an incremental increase in day-care costs for her four-year-old — related to the attacks, totaling about $4,000. The Red Cross’s response? It wrote her a check for $6,500.

The article also quotes a Tribeca filmmaker who passes along the information that people are "struggling deeply" with the question of whether the income lost because of volunteering qualifies as a hardship that can be reimbursed by The Red Cross. This all strikes me as very wrong. I gave money to the fund, and though at the time it was certainly given to help the specific September 11 victims and relief efforts, I know I would much rather my money be given to somebody who was truly in need, for any reason, rather than some guy who may have missed a few days of work. I obviously can't blame The Red Cross, though, as they've been backed into a corner.