• Evacuees in St. Louis: Beginning Wednesday, August 31, the St. Louis Area Chapter opened two Service Center operations at the Corporate Square and Metro East offices to assist evacuees seeking refuge in the St. Louis area.  An expanded Service Center is now open adjacent to Chapter headquarters to serve families that continue to arrive from the Gulf Coast region. Red Cross caseworkers in St. Louis have already met with 4,726 people from 1,973 families. The Red Cross is providing assistance with emergency food, shelter, clothing, prescription medication, mental health counseling and more, based on the needs of each family. Direct aid disbursed through the St. Louis Area Chapter totals $1.33 million to date. Nearly all evacuees have come to St. Louis because they have family and friends in the area and more are arriving daily. Red Cross is working with the United Way of Greater St. Louis and local agencies to bridge from emergency needs to fulfillment of longer term needs.
  
• Phone Bank: Opened Tuesday, August 30, our toll-free phone bank was open for 18 days, staffed by nearly 200 people and serving over 8,200 callers. While many calls were from those who offered help (volunteer, donate, give blood), 13 percent of calls were from evacuees seeking help. While the phone bank has been deactivated, the toll-free number remains active and is forwarded to and handled by our front office team; in the event that calls surge following Hurricane Rita, the phone banks will be expanded again.
  
• Deployed Volunteers and Equipment: The St. Louis Area Chapter has deployed 27 highly trained disaster volunteers and staff to areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. In addition, 70 more experienced disaster volunteers are on standby for deployment as needed. Volunteer deployments are typically three-week assignments. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, the Chapter dispatched an emergency response vehicle capable of serving up to 600 meals at a time in the neighborhoods most severely impacted by the hurricane.
  
• New Volunteers: Inspired to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact, over 3,600 new volunteers are now being processed and offered training through the St. Louis Area Chapter. Expanded volunteer training opportunities begin on Wednesday, September 28. While hundreds of pre-trained and spontaneous volunteers have been directly involved in relief efforts, hundreds more will have the opportunity to serve as national disaster volunteers in the weeks to come.
  
• On-Line Activitiy: Over 50,000 unique visitors have visited the St. Louis Area Chapter web site, with over 2.4 million hits in 23 days. Throught the Chapter web site, nearly 2,500 people have submitted Volunteer Applications; more than 2,100 people have made on-line donations, totaling $264,000.
  
• Donations: Through the generosity of individuals, community groups, corporations and foundations, the St. Louis Area Chapter has received over $11 million in contributions and pledges for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. While always thankful for all donations to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina, the Red Cross is encouraging the community to also give to the United Way, which supports many local organizations involved in the hurricane relief efforts.

• Shelters and Evacuation Centers: Since Hurricane Katrina first slammed ashore in Florida, the American Red Cross has housed over 204,000 people in more than 902 shelters across 26 states (233 in Louisiana alone) with additional shelters on standby as needed following Hurricane Rita. In addition, over 264,000 people in 46 states were able to get hotel accommodations on their own, but have now found that they cannot return home and are exhausting their financial resources; Red Cross is covering the hotel costs for these families for a period of time.
  
• Meals and Snacks: The American Red Cross has served nearly 12 million hot meals and another 8.2 million snacks to survivors of Hurricane Katrina since before first landfall. While maintaining all current feeding operations, Red Cross stands ready to serve an additional 750,000 meals per day after Hurricane Rita makes landfall.
  
• Volunteers: More than 138,000 Red Cross workers have come from every corner of the United States to join thousands of local volunteers who responded immediately to help their neighbors in impacted areas. With tens of thousands of families needing our assistance for the foreseeable future, the Red Cross is rapidly augmenting its cadre of trained disaster volunteers by recruiting and training 40,000 new volunteers from across the country; 20,000 will be in place by September 30.
  
• Family Linking: Evacuees and loved ones separated by this disaster can go to www.redcross.org or call 1.877.LOVED.1S.  Over 211,000 people are now registered on the Red Cross Family Links Registry. In order to connect with all other linking registries, the American Red Cross recently partnered with Microsoft and the San Diego Super Computer Center to create KatrinaSafe.org, a super-list database that includeds all names submitted through Red Cross on-line, by phone or through the registry of other web sites run by many organizations.
  
• Donations: Through September 22, the American National Red Cross had received $826.8 million in contributions and pledges. Approximately $693.4 million has already been spent or committed to meet emergency needs in the wake of Katrina; of this, nearly $438 million has been distributed for financial sassistance for more than 448,000 families. At least 91 cents of every dollar donated to the American Red Cross goes directly to assist disaster victims. Charity Navigator has awarded the Red Cross four-stars, its highest rating for donor stewardship, for the fourth year in a row.

1. The Red Cross will spend an estimated $744 million in food and shelter operations, including hot meals, snacks, drinks, cots, blankets, and supplies;
2. We are planning to give more than $1.4 billion in direct emergency financial assistance to individuals and families; and
3. We plan to provide $78.4 million in disaster-related physical and mental heath services, including replacing prescription medications, using our network of nurses and trained mental health counselors.

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