Resources for Hurricane Ida Relief

If you’re wondering how to help people who are being hit by Hurricane Ida, we’re here to help!

It can be hard to know who and what organizations to donate to because you obviously want financial resources to get to where it can be most useful. For those purposes, we’ve reached out to a few New Orleans community members that members of the BLUU OCB have long standing relationships with and asked which organizations or groups would they recommend contributing to. These are trusted sources that are distributing money on the ground currently or will be in the coming months. The recovery from Hurricane Ida is going to be a very long one.

BLUU will be continuing to vett and add to this list of groups and organizations.

A few notes about the listed groups and organizations:

*If you are able to and want to donate to mutual aid funds, these are a powerful way to quickly get money into the hands of individuals and families who need support immediately. They often don’t have arduous or complicated application and disbursement processes. These are also not tax-deductible donations.

*If you are wanting to support an organization, we will list a few options that are tax-deductible donations.

Please choose the organizations and groups that speak to you and your heart. We’ll be sharing these groups through posts on social media in the days ahead and hopefully giving a little bit of context or info for each one. Please share and invite others to support in this time of need.

Also please be aware that most organizations are being run right now by staffers or volunteers who have left the city. The city has no power and water is on a boil warning. So their websites may not reflect what has happened however their longstanding methods by which to donate are functioning and they will get the money. For many orgs you can follow on Instagram or elsewhere to be able to get updates.

BLUU has started an individual fund for students at George Washington Carver High School. Through a contact at the school we’ll be distributing funds raised to individual students through PayPal and Cash App. You can give to this specific effort by clicking here.

The House of Tulip is co-founded and led by trans folks and offers support services for trans and gender nonconforming communities, including some mutual aid. Please follow them on Instagram at @houseoftulipno and they have listed other ways to give (the usernames must be exact, sadly some people are trying to scam people by imitating and coming up with usernames that are close — but these are the correct ones AND if you want to be certain you can always give through their website):

CashApp: $HouseOfTulip

Venmo: @HouseofTulip

Paypal: Paypal.me/HouseOfTulip

Broad Community Connections is a community-led and community-based organization that is working on the revitalization of a historically Black neighborhood. They are gearing up to support those in need in the wake of Hurricane Ida. Including support of businesses.

The United Houma Nation There are many small and rural tribal nations that have been hit hard by the hurricane and will need support. Some tribal nations are offering mutual aid disbursements.

The Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe main page and the giving link here.

Imagine WaterWorks does many things including distributing mutual aid.

For more specific mutual aid giving opportunities please visit the following links displayed below from the Instagram account @mutualaiddisasterrelief

If you want to volunteer remotely, need assistance, or send supplies to Louisiana:

Please donate and help. The power is out across many areas of Louisiana. And people need help. You can also visit https://www.disasterassistance.gov/ for federal government assistance. On this site, you can look up a city and state or zip code to see if the area is currently declared a disaster due to flooding, wild fires, and hurricanes and apply for assistance.