The silver lining to the Deepwater Horizon spill is that there has been a tremendous outpouring of support.  Currently coordination is still catching up with donations so the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program. has asked that donors please stand by with supplies and refrain fron sending more until they can acertain the most pressing needs.  You can check in to their site for the latest updates.  But if you are looking for other ways to help in the meantime please check out these links.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/kindness/post/2010/05/gulf-coast-oil-spill-how-to-help/1

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/539675/

http://www.tristatebird.org/ – Tri-State has been asked to oversee the wildlife rehabilitation response along the gulf coast and is working closely with many collaborating organizations. All response efforts are being coordinated by the Unified Command on-site.

Matter of Trust is a San Fransisco-based company that recycles human (and pet) hair as well as nylon stockings to make absorbent oil buoys (booms). An environmental non-profit, it has helped clean up oil spills in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond since 1998 by reusing donated hair clippings from hair salons, barber shops, pet groomers, and wool farmers. Stuffing this donated hair into donated nylon stockings, this organization creates highly absorbent booms to contain oil spills.

Matter of Trust is currently coordinating efforts of thousands of participants to match nylon and hair donations to space in temporary warehousing along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. Volunteers are building booms on site hoping to hold off the encroaching oil slick. Through its donor database matching system program called Excess Access, Matter of Trust is notifying salons and groomers… of where exactly to send their boxes to high-priority sites.

The organization is already receiving donations from all 50 states and several other countries.
Donations include hundreds of thousands of pounds of hair, and many washed nylon pantyhose stockings, which they’ll accept even with small runs or tears.

Gulf Coast cities are heralding volunteers that are hosting “Bar B Q parties,” or “Boom B Q’s as they’re calling them, to assemble booms in their own backyards. Other “hair-raising” events include “Cut-a-thon” and “Shave-a-thon” parties to collect hair donations.

ORCHESTRATION AND COLLABORATION

“We all want the same end results,” says Gautier. “We would love to hear from Unified Command, and understand that they’re even busier than we are. We know from past spills that they call you, it’s hard to reach them. It would be nice to connect, to be sure we don’t ”

WHY HAIR?

“Simply put, we shampoo because hair collects oil. It soaks up skin oils, grabs oil from the pollution in the air, and it can soak up petroleum in oil spills.” says Lisa Craig Gautier, Executive Director of Matter of Trust.

FOR MORE INFO, PLEASE SEE:
Matter of Trust website
Guidelines for donating hair or fur.
Click here to register donations and to receive updates.

• The BP Community Support Team has set up a hotline for those who would like to help: 866-448-5816;
• The National Wildlife Federation is working with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, anyone in the southern Louisiana area looking to help out can get info through this website;
• The International Bird Rescue and Research Center has deployed specialists to help with oiled wildlife. If you spot oiled wildlife, call the Wildlife Reporting Hotline at 866-557-1401. Please don’t try to capture effected animals, but report their location to the hotline;
• The National Audubon Society is recruiting volunteers to be trained to respond to the oil spill. They are also encouraging members of the public to contact the Interior Department and encourage them to halt the expansion of offshore oil drilling in the eastern United States;
• Residents of Alabama should contact the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program at 251-431-6409 or Mobile Baykeeper at 251- 433-4229 to volunteer anywhere along the Gulf Coast;
• Save Our Seabirds is a Florida bird rescue group that is looking for volunteers as its response team prepares to help oiled wildlife. To help, call 941-388-3010;
• OilSpillVolunteers.com is also needing volunteers to assist with the cleanup.

Please note: Until called by any of these organizations, it is important for would-be volunteers to avoid affected areas and interference with initial response efforts, as encouraged by the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program.