How you can help clean up the Gulf

In addition to the work being done at Poets for Living Waters, Facebook tells us that a number of poets are making arrangements to travel down to the Gulf Coast to help clean up the wide-ranging effects of the BP oil spill.

For anyone interested, here is a list of organizations taking on volunteers:

• Louisiana's St. Tammany Humane Society seeks trained and untrained volunteers to help clean and rehab oiled pelicans. Call Catherine Wilbert at 985-674-6898.

• The Sierra Club is mobilizing volunteers, and will connect you with opportunities to help. Click here for information on the Delta Area Sierra Club.

• Human hair from beauty salons, animal fur from groomers and pantyhose are needed by San Fransisco-based Matter of Trust to make homemade booms to sop up the oil. The fur is stuffed into pantyhose, which give shape to the booms. Volunteers are needed at warehouses in different sites across the country to gather for “Boom-B-Qs” to learn how to make the booms.

• The National Audubon Society is seeking volunteers wishing to clean up birds. Click here to register. The Audobon Society also seeks eBirders, people needed to survey local beaches and marshes for birds; your observations will help conservationists and researchers prioritize their efforts and asses the impacts of the spill.

• Another option for those wishing to help oiled birds, Pascagoula River Audubon Center, part of Audubon Mississippi, is organizing training on cleaning wildlife affected by the oil spill. Volunteers may register their contact information here.

• Tristate Bird Rescue & Research is also coordinating on-the-ground volunteer efforts.

• Save Our Seabirds is a Sarasota, Florida-based bird rescue group that is looking for volunteers and support as its response team prepares to help oiled wildlife. Please click here to fill out their online form or call 941-388-3010.

• The city of Biloxi, Mississippi is signing up volunteers at www.biloxi.ms.us/Volunteer.asp for when the oil reaches its shores.

If you have other suggestions or know of other literary organizations involved in the cleanup effort, please email [email protected] with details.