You can also follow updates from Red Cross staff on the ground via the Red Cross Blog.

Here the Dutch site fore helping the poor souls in Haiti. Fore non Dutch, this site is a coop action of Dutch aid foundations including the Red Cross.
Help slachtoffers aardbeving Haiti.

how quickly we forget existing problems within our own country, for a more popular disaster to donate to.

last time i checked there was still major issues within the united states, such as new orleans, and the gulf states, which were nowhere near recovered from the hurricanes how many years ago now?

how many are still homeless? displaced? unemployed from that disaster?

but that is not as popular at the moment as the dying hatians.

this country is about three flushes from going down the crapper, and we are still giving away the farm to other countries to be stylish

ask yourself how many children, families, and elderly will be without a home tonight? in the great united states. suffering, freezing and yes dying today.
or perhaps how many of your countrymen call home a tent in a state park, or if they are very lucky maybe they have an old motorhome to live in

how many of your fellow countrymen will be unable to get a meal today because your donation went to hati instead of a food bank in your own country.

have you ever had to make the decision as to weather to eat this week? or get necessary heart medications? because there isn't enough money to do both (i have)

you ignore your fellow countrymen when you see them, you call them dirty bums, drunks, druggies
many of them weren't always that way many had good jobs, homes, families but through whatever reason no longer do, and can no longer face the day to day misery of their own life.

so yes call me heartless, call me insensative, scrooge, whatever you like the old saying goes charity begins at home, and your and my, home the united states of america needs to help itself first

that bum might just be a veteran, or somebody not to different from yourself

There are countries out there so very, very poor that when struck with disaster they themselves can't even begin to help themselves, that the world itself has to turn its assistance to them, ensuring entire populations aren't extinguished.

Sure we have our own problems here in the US, and a LOT of them. For generations, since before the Civil War, we have had the homeless, and the hungry, and the sick elderly. It's nothing new. It just grows in proportion with the population. But there are enough of us out here with the means to make sure that those in need have what it takes to survive. We just have to 'want to help'. A $10 donation now isnt going to stop me from contributing a box of canned goods to the local Food Pantry, and I can barely pay my own bills.

America isnt perfect, it never has been, and never will be. We are arrogant that way. And America isn't the land of Milk and Honey with roads paved in gold. There are an estimated 305-Million of us here in the US, and more coming every day. Many Americans have forgotten their sense of civil service, with a prevailing attitude of 'whats in it for me', and worrying too much about keeping up with the Jones's rather than to help out a fellow American in need. I remember back in the 60's-70's we had a program called 'Adopt a Family', kind of like the modern day Children's Angel Tree. You picked a family off the list, donated clothes, food, books, and whatever else was in your means. And we were just average middle-class Americans living in Mississippi.

Nobody is forgetting our own problems at home. Sometimes we have a lot of things 'cooking on the stove' at the same time, but have to pay more attention to one item so that it doesnt get burned. It is like that now.

You cannot say that this one disaster is keeping us from our own problems. Some of our problems are so huge it will take a decade, a generation, a century to fix. It cant be done overnight. And maybe sometimes it just isnt meant to be.

I believe that we are tested in tough times to see how we respond. We are put here for a purpose, to help others in times of great need. I also believe that faith without deeds is dead.

Take some time to listen to his experience - Podcast here.