Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced that the volunteers who have helped the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City raise more than $621,000 to date for disaster relief in Haiti will be honored this afternoon by ringing the Closing Bell (SM) at the New York Stock Exchange.

Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12th, the City established the Haiti Relief Fund and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City began to collect donations to assist the relief efforts. The Mayor’s Fund’s five person staff was quickly overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, and organized a host of volunteers from City agencies including the Mayor’s Office (including Fiscal, Operations, Immigrant Affairs, NYC Service), the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Youth and Community Development. The result was a quickly built and efficient team of volunteers who received calls transferred from 311, facilitated donations and answered general inquiries. To date, over 110 volunteers who speak Haitian Creole, French and Spanish have worked more than 90 four-hour shifts. 

One of the Mayor’s fund volunteers – Administrative Services Payroll Clerk Yazmin Audain – was profiled in today’s New York Daily News.  On Sunday, after days volunteering at the Mayor’s Fund, she finally got word from her father in a Port-au-Prince suburb that he survived the earthquake.

As of this morning, the Mayor’s Fund has raised $621,001 from more than 2,759 donors in all five boroughs and places outside of New York as far away as Tokyo, Sao Paulo, and Singapore.  Every cent raised for Haiti by the Mayor’s Fund goes to disaster relief organizations in Haiti.

To donate by phone: call 311 (212-NEW-YORK if outside New York City), online: go to www.nyc.gov/fund, by mail: make check payable to Mayor’s Fund, One Centre Street, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10007 (note: Haiti Relief Fund).