By Mary Whitfill

Staff Writer

On Jan. 12 at 4:53 pm an earthquake devastated Haiti, hitting with a magnitude of 7.0 at the epicenter, the USGS called it the strongest earthquake in the area since 1770. The earthquake hit 10 miles west of Porte-au-Prince and its 2 million inhabitants, leaving 3 million in need of emergency care.

Since as early as hours after the earthquake, charity organizations have been pulling together new projects and creating new funds to help those devastated by the disaster. The following include some of the most popular groups that have begun to establish ways to provide relief to the Haitians.

UNICEF is currently operating in over 150 countries, providing children with clean water, healthcare, nutrition, education, emergency relief and more. The United Stated Fund for UNICEF supports the work of the organization through advertising and advocacy. Right now UNICEF is accepting tax-deductable donations to help the children affected by the earthquake. 100% of every dollar will go directly towards helping the country’s youngest population.

 George Clooney and Wyclef Jean will be hosting a “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon tonight in conjunction with MTV. More information available here on coppellstudentmedia.com.

Google crisis response will be providing $1 million to help organizations provide relief. A list of organizations Google will be supporting can be found here. Also, donations can be made to the Google supported organizations linking to the same webpage.

Doing a simple Google search with key words ‘help Haiti’ or ‘how to help Haiti’ will bring up hundreds of results of organizations and charities that are participating across the globe. Similar to the efforts to help victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina of 2005, the world joins together to provide relief. Get involved.