Haiti Text Message Donations Raise $3 Million For Relief Effort

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45678 to Haiti: How To Help Haiti Earthquake Victims

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Hours after the deadly Haitian earthquake, dozens of relief organizations around the world started soliciting for donations. As news of significant life loss and devastation in Haiti started spreading around the globe, thousands of people reached into their wallets to help the relief effort. Among organizations asking for donations was the Yéle Haiti Foundation run by Wyclef Jean. Yele asked to text "Haiti" to number 501501, which automatically donated $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund. American Red Cross accepted text message donations as well when users texted "Haiti" to 90999, which resulted in an automatic donation of $10.

Today, it was revealed that a whopping $3 million was raised by the relief organizations in the U.S. since text message donations have begun, which was a little over 24 hours ago. Yéle alone raised over $400,000, which means 80,000 people donated. Red Cross raised over $800,000. These donation numbers are record-breaking. The most raised via text messages was $400,000 during Hurricane Katrina and $200,000 during Asian Tsunami.

For more information on how to help, check out "How Can I Help Haiti?"