Following a series of natural disasters that have impacted tens of thousands of people in the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean, Apple employees and customers have raised more than $13 million to provide shelter, food, and clean water in areas devastated by earthquakes and hurricanes.
Apple shared the update in a news post released this morning. Funds have been raised in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which impacted Texas and Louisiana, Hurricane Irma, which hit the Gulf Coast, Florida Keys, and several Caribbean Islands, Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico, and earthquakes that hit Mexico.
Along with raising money, many Apple employees stepped up to volunteer for recovery efforts, running food drives, opening their homes, transporting clean water, and more.
Apple is continuing to raise money for relief efforts in Puerto Rico and other U.S. communities by accepting donations to the American Red Cross and the Hand in Hand hurricane relief benefit, with customers already having raised more than $2 million.
Employee donations to the American Red Cross, Hand in Hand, GlobalGiving, and UNICEF are being matched two-to-one by Apple, and the company says that it donated $1 million to the American Red Cross and UNICEF for Hurricane Maria relief and $1 million to GlobalGiving for earthquake recovery efforts in Mexico.
These donations are on top of several other donations Apple has made over the course of the last month. Apple donated $5 million to the Hand in Hand benefit for hurricane relief efforts, and another $2 million to help Hurricane Harvey victims.
iTunes and App Store customers can easily donate by clicking on the American Red Cross banner in the respective stores and choosing an amount to donate.
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Edit to add...just think about it: ALL of their agricultural is said to be GONE. Just...wiped out.
Only if bigots understood what unity is.
The relief efforts are a continuing thing. This isn’t one time. This aid effort is going to take YEARS. Especially in Puerto Rico. When it comes to Puerto Rico, donations in the coming days and weeks will help just as much as early donations. They’re reporting that they are still working to physically get through to people isolated by debris and flooding. Once they get through, and someone (the military?) establishes a way to actually distribute assistance, we will see how much more is really needed. We haven’t seen anything, yet. Right now the people there have no way of hearing what people here are trying to do for them and are starting to panic. The people here aren’t sure what the people there can actually get delivered to them. It’s early days and horrible.
It’s something we need to pay attention to long term and not just until the news moves on to something else. It’s going to fall to community organizations and churches to keep efforts going locally. Almost everyone where I live knows someone or has family in one of the Hurricane relief areas. They’re the ones keeping churches and charities informed of what the needs are.
[doublepost=1506632432][/doublepost]That makes sense. I have an iPhone 7 Plus and am in no rush to upgrade given that the purchasing decision is so fraught with uncertainty anyway, so, yeah, I definitely can spare something for relief efforts.