I Need Your Help: You Decide How Much I Donate to Storm Relief

by Gary Leff

I was supposed to be in New York this past weekend, and it was a pleasure trip, so I cancelled it (for obvious reasons).

I grew up on Long Island, and have family on Staten Island. My uncle there, a first-responder, has been a part of search and rescue efforts. My family is fortunate to all be ok and to have just property damaged.

The storm there is shocking in so many ways, and almost a week later they’ve only just scratched the surface of recovery.

Mommy Points came up with an idea of ‘Comments for Contributions.’ The original idea was something like ‘100 for $100’ where a blogger would donate $1 per comment, up to $100.

But bloggers can be a competitive bunch, and a collaborative bunch too, and we’ve challenged each other to do a bit more. The combined comments (in a designated thread) on each of six blogs:

…will determine how much is donated, up to 1800 comments in total for $1800 in contributions.

Living in DC I was only barely affected by the storm, sure the city shut down for a couple of days but I lost power for less than 18 hours. I’ve been lucky in so many ways.

So I’m glad that the group of six of us can both give to assist in relief efforts, and also help engage our readership in that effort as well.

More on how you can help decide how much I donate in a moment. First, a word on how you can make donations, while tapping into either matching contributions from travel providers or mileage-earning incentives (or both!) at the same time.

Mommy Points put together a list of mileage-earning opportunities for contributions and also mileage donation opportunities, along with help from Wandering Aramean who lives in Lower Manhattan.

Now, here’s how you can help right now and in this post.

I don’t usually like talking about my own charitable giving, I feel like charity shouldn’t be ‘showy’ and at least speaking purely personally I prefer to do it quietly.

But there’s this challenge on the table to help and the involvement device of a comment helps bring more attention to giving for others perhaps and generating some incremental social excitement could help spur involvement from others. So I’m willing to break my own rules or at least strong preferences here.

Leave a comment about the storm, either how you were affected, what you’re doing to help, or how it’s weighed on you.

The six of us will collectively donate $1 for every comment received in the relevant post on our blogs. Leave a comment here in this post by Noon Eastern on Thursday, November 8th. The goal is $1800 to charity to support relief from the storm.

In that way, you can help direct my charitable dollars and those of three other bloggers to hurricane relief.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. Thanks for doing this. And don’t forget Haiti. they got Sandied, too. I am donating to CARE.

  4. I stay in PA and it was tough storm to beat. We did not face major problems but our friends in NJ were without power for 1 week. This is a great initiative.

  5. I’ve never been to the area, but I have friends there, including one who has been without power for over 200 hours now. It’s amazing how resilient people are, and how they come together in times of crisis.

  6. We were fortunate to just have a lot of rain in VA, and no significant damage. Great to see this help from boarding area bloggers for the folks hit hardest.

  7. NJ Transit being crippled is causing some inconvenience, but we were lucky to only be inconvenienced

  8. we lost electricity for 5 days, are dealing with gas shortages, but were so much luckier than a lot of others. neighbors came together to share resources and make sure the elderly were cared for.

  9. I live in California so wasn’t really directly impacted by the storm. However, this has me thinking … West coast seems pretty good from an overall natural disaster risk factor. To be honest, this post is prompting me to better consider donation options. So thank you.

  17. Two of my DO attendees left the Monterey weekend early to make it home before the flights shut down. Thankfully, they both traveled safely.

  35. Having grown up on Long Island/Fire Island, this storm has had a huge effect on the area. Still trying to identify how to help.

  42. Very good of you to do this! I just donated all my Delta miles and I just donated $$ through the Hilton portal thus extending the expiry date of my points. I think that this makes a win, win, win all around!

  45. Thanks for doing this. Nice to see my daughter-in law and son teaming up with you all to help those in need.

  46. This is a great idea! Incredibly generous. I’ve donated money and wish I could do more to help in person.

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