Haiti Ads

Sea Oats · February 2010

So, I'm assuming everyone knows about the earthquake in Haiti a few weeks ago and about the devastation it caused. If not, read about it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake"; target="_blank" class="bb-url">here</a>. And even if you didn't know what happened, I know that if you watch any TV whatsoever, you've seen the commercials asking you to donate money to Haiti to help them out. I agree, we should be helping. Surely everyone remembers Hurricane Katrina in '05, that hit 7 states and caused almost 2,000 deaths. More than 50 countries helped out the US when we needed it, so I'm not saying we shouldn't be helping Haiti. We should. What's annoying is, organizations are spending buttloads of money on commercials to tell us we need to be donating money and time to Haiti, but why not use that money they're using to make the commercials and send it down there? Isn't that the logical thing to do? They're probably spending more on funding for TV programs about it than they are getting back to send to Haiti. It's not that the commercials are annoying, but they're everywhere, and I'm sure they aren't cheap. Skip a step and send that almost wasted money to benefit Haiti directly.

iluvdogs111 · February 2010

You do have a point, but I'm sure organizations that make commercials about this are just trying to spread the word and encourage people to donate. You see commericials asking to donate to many different organations, including animal rescues, sponcering kids in Africa, and many types of things. I do think maybe there are a little too many ads about this earthquake, most everyone now knows about it, but the commercials can help you know what organization to donate to, right? People just want to get the word out, and personally I don't all the adds are a big deal. Just my opinion. :?

BuffyBoarding · February 2010

Personal opinion that i won't go into great detail about but... There are people in american who are homeless, sick, and abused. People who are starving and they are not receiving help. I believe that we should take care of our own people before reaching out to others. Yes it is Amazing that we want to help other countries, don't get me wrong. But should we not make sure our own people are cared for first? -Do NOT go off on me about this, it is my opinion. You have every right to your own opinions.-

Sea Oats · February 2010

iluvdogs111 wrote:

You do have a point, but I'm sure organizations that make commercials about this are just trying to spread the word and encourage people to donate. You see commericials asking to donate to many different organations, including animal rescues, sponcering kids in Africa, and many types of things. I do think maybe there are a little too many ads about this earthquake, most everyone now knows about it, but the commercials can help you know what organization to donate to, right? People just want to get the word out, and personally I don't all the adds are a big deal. Just my opinion. :?

And I agree, it's not a huge deal, and you do see lots of Humane Society commercials and thing like that, but in all honesty, I see a Haiti commercial almost every break between shows, I see the Humane Society ones -maybe- once a day, sometimes not even.

Buffy wrote:

Personal opinion that i won't go into great detail about but... There are people in american who are homeless, sick, and abused. People who are starving and they are not receiving help. I believe that we should take care of our own people before reaching out to others. Yes it is Amazing that we want to help other countries, don't get me wrong. But should we not make sure our own people are cared for first? -Do NOT go off on me about this, it is my opinion. You have every right to your own opinions.-

I agree with this. We have tons of people in our own country that need our help, but we're out concerned about starving children and the AIDs epidemic in Africa and the earthquake in Haiti. I'm sure none of them are very concerned about helping our homeless. Granted, our country is a hell of a lot better off than most others. You have to take that into consideration. And many of the people that aren't very well off in the US is because they just don't take the initiative. Americans are lazy, compared to the rest of the world, with some countries putting children to work to make a living. That's not to be said for everyone, I realize that, but everyone born in this country was born with equal opportunity. Public school systems are in affect so that everyone can have basic education for free. If people would actually go to school and take advantage of that, more people would be better off, but many people drop out or just don't try and can't get into college or just don't want to. A lot of other countries don't even have the option of an education, they're just put to work for pennies, when we have adults in this country that don't work merely because they know they can get welfare and be well enough off to support their families. My mother got laid off in June, we're living on food stamps and her unemployment. She's gone back to school for the second time to try to make herself better and get a more reliable job in a better field. She's worked hard for everything she has, and they took our food stamps away. We live in a pretty highly populated city, with a lot of underclass people. My mom went to appeal our case for food stamps this past Friday, and you know what happened while she was there? A woman in line, with her already 4 children, was talking to another woman about how the $600 of food stamps she was getting a month wasn't enough, s she wanted more. She also mentioned not having a job and living off of Medicaid and welfare. She used her sister's two children along with her own to apply for food stamps so she got upped to almost $800 a month for -just- food. I understand not everyone has this situation where they just aren't going to try because they know they can get it, my mom is an example. She had her job ripped from under her, but she's doing something about it.

Alabama · February 2010

Most Americans only have to reach out to get help. The people in Haiti, right now, have no one to reach out to. Their government is in shambles, bank system gone, health care seriously overloaded, food shortages that can't be grown overnight, water supplies compromised/non existant, etc. Haiti's situation is an emergency, ours is a long standing problem that has solutions people aren't willing to accept. Personally, I think we should help people in trouble, our own first, as well. If we had a similar catastrophe here at the same time as Haiti had theirs, I'd have to say let others take care of Haiti until ours are taken care of. You can't force people to take homes/shelter if they don't want it. You can't stop abuse if no one reports it. You can have free food set out, but if people don't come get it, you can't track all of them down. Anyone who is sick or close to dying only has to dial or ask someone to dial 911. I think you'll find most of those commercials are donated. If the commercials weren't happening, many, many people would forget.

Sea Oats · February 2010

We also talked about the donation thing, I believe that the commercials are made free or close to it, but you know networks are probably charging to air them.

3eagles · February 2010

Buffy wrote:

Personal opinion that i won't go into great detail about but... There are people in american who are homeless, sick, and abused. People who are starving and they are not receiving help. I believe that we should take care of our own people before reaching out to others. Yes it is Amazing that we want to help other countries, don't get me wrong. But should we not make sure our own people are cared for first? -Do NOT go off on me about this, it is my opinion. You have every right to your own opinions.-

I totally agree. All I have to say about that, lol.

Hibachi · February 2010

iluvdogs111 wrote:

You do have a point, but I'm sure organizations that make commercials about this are just trying to spread the word and encourage people to donate. You see commericials asking to donate to many different organations, including animal rescues, sponcering kids in Africa, and many types of things. I do think maybe there are a little too many ads about this earthquake, most everyone now knows about it, but the commercials can help you know what organization to donate to, right? People just want to get the word out, and personally I don't all the adds are a big deal. Just my opinion. :?

Well said.

I see ASPCA commercials 24/7, I even see them outside Animal Planet...and honestly I haven't seen many...actually any Haiti ads, cept for on the news and whatnot. On, the subject of helping them. While I agree an epidemic should not raise the fact that we should help, however what happened in Haiti was a disaster the fact that parents are giving up their children to orphanages because they cannot afford to give them shelter, food, etc. is just heartbreaking. I know if something like that happened in America we would be the first to take handouts. And there are organizations to help our own people...it's just not flaunted about, I know my mom and her coworkers have a special organization where they go and give cancer patients a new hairdo and do their nails, etc. Poverty will never come to an end, it just wont, it's something that will last forever. But I'm sure Haiti's number of homeless are far greater than ours. Not only that, I know someone on another forum who's father got crushed under a building and she went down to visit her family and she said that the smell is just horrid and here in America we don't see dead people lying around. The death toll there is over 200,000 along with more than 1 million homeless. I'm quite glad America is helping them, shows for once we aren't selfish when it comes to these manners.

iluvdogs111 · February 2010

Buffy wrote:

Personal opinion that i won't go into great detail about but... There are people in american who are homeless, sick, and abused. People who are starving and they are not receiving help. I believe that we should take care of our own people before reaching out to others. Yes it is Amazing that we want to help other countries, don't get me wrong. But should we not make sure our own people are cared for first? -Do NOT go off on me about this, it is my opinion. You have every right to your own opinions.-

I have to disagree with this. Please don't think I'm being rude or saying you're wrong, this just is what I think..... No matter how much we try to help, we are always going to have some hungy/homeless people. It is sad, but our counrty isn't perfect and it never will be. Even if we do save some hungry or homeless people, there will probably be more in the future. I agree, we should be helping people in our own counrty more. But what happened in Haiti was a diaster. So many people are dead, injured, homeless. Many countries sprung into action to help Haiti, and if something like that happened to our counrty, like Avla said, we'd expect people from outside our country to help too. If we put aside helping others until everything in our own counrty is fixed, what would happen? I'm sure Haiti is getting a lot of it's donations/help from America. And there are several countries that are much worse than ours. If every counrty focused on their own problems, no one would be helping each other and it would be a diaster. Hungry and homeless people can be helped-but it's something that can be done over time. What happened in Haiti was an unexpected, unpreventable mess that needed to be cleaned up right away. Reaching out to others is a good thing. Don't you think it's nice to know that if diaster strikes, we have help from other people and places all around the world?

RoyalRaccoon · February 2010

A lot of these commercials probably get sponsoring from the broadcasting networks, so that they can also say they helped. The commercials are also a big part of reaching everyone, and reminding them that if they have a $1 to spare that's currently tumbling in a pants pocket in the washing machine, they should donate it instead of wasting it away(whether it goes to a homeless shelter or Haiti). Commercials, though they do take money, they promote awareness. If my donated money goes to a commercial, I would have no problem with it at all, because if a single airing of a commercial makes 100 people aware, and gets a dozen to donate, then it's a success. Darwin is my biggest hero, but Mandela has always been close behind, because in his words "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. " Since it was brought up..... I don't agree with the "help ourselves before we help other countries," opinion, but living in the U.S. means you get the right to think and voice that opinion, just like I get the right to have and voice my own opinion. My personal opinion is that all the tax payer money we spend on government funded facilities that provide food, health care, education, shelter, and work opportunities is probably more that the whole Haitian government had before the earthquake. Haiti is honestly one of the poorest countries with one of the most corrupt governments, without help from other countries those people that were affected by the earthquake would die because their government doesn't have the funding or compassion to really care. What happened to them is an unforeseen disaster. The least we can do is make sure they are at a point where they can fix their country themselves. I could go on, but I won't since it's a controversial topic that is bound to go too far.

Kidashka · February 2010

Buffy wrote:

Personal opinion that i won't go into great detail about but... There are people in american who are homeless, sick, and abused. People who are starving and they are not receiving help. I believe that we should take care of our own people before reaching out to others. Yes it is Amazing that we want to help other countries, don't get me wrong. But should we not make sure our own people are cared for first? -Do NOT go off on me about this, it is my opinion. You have every right to your own opinions.-

I agree Buffy. Did anyone here about the little baby trown down in a latrine in Hatie just recently? How Horrible! :evil:

Faeriegirl83 · February 2010

I donated so much money to Haiti . . . I was in the outskirts of hurricane Katrina before it became a tropical storm. I remember being terrified. We just barely avoided being evacuated since it calmed before things got worse, but some of our friends had to. All I remember was being scared for my beautiful tree in the front yard, a slender little birch that I loved so incredibly much. It whipped around so much I was certain it would snap, like the HUGE one next door did (on my neighbor's house, and their child got injured from the broken glass

) But Haitians don't worry about their trees, they worry about their lives. I remember the terror and it spurred me to donate as much as I could.

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