Bladen County residents wishing to make donations to the Haiti relief efforts now have three location where they can drop off their items. Items may be dropped off at the Bladen Journal offices located at 138 West Broad Street, Elizabethtown; Hickory Grove Baptist Church located at 6362 Center Road, Bladenboro; and at the Bladen Baptist Association office located at 137 Mercer Mill Road, Elizabethtown.

According to Bruce Cannon, director of missions for the Bladen Baptist Association, the association is partnering with “Touch The World Ministries” of Morganton to collect goods to be sent to Haiti to aid in the recovery efforts.

“Checks can be made payable to ‘Touch the World Ministries’ if people would like to help pay for shipping costs or for purchase of food and medical supplies,” added Cannon.

Items being collected are:

• tents

• tarps, ropes

• working generators, gas can

• cooking pots

• utensils

• towels, blankets, sheets

• bottled water in case (12/24 per case)

• cleaning products

• new clothes, new shoes

• canned food/flip open tops

• canned pasta meals

• baby formula powder only-bottles, baby powder-pins, diapers

• garbage liners

• shovels

• buckets

• rice, beans in 10-20 lb bags

• cooking oil

• peanut butter - jelly

• batteries, flashlights, matches

• gauze, neosporin

• gauze bandages

• kotex, diapers

• One gallon zip lock bags of personal hygiene kits (fill with): bar soap, tooth brush, tooth paste, washcloth, neosporin and band-aids.

Also, folks can make a donation to the American Red Cross by going to the Red Cross Web site at http://www.highlandsarc.org/ and select the icon labeled donate now or they can make a $10 donation by texting the word “Haiti” to 90999. The $10 donation will be charged to the user’s next cell phone bill.