Missouri official helping New York sort out donations

ST. LOUIS -- As Missouri's statewide volunteer coordinator, Dante Gliniecki has directed the distribution of donations and services following everything from floods to tornadoes.

Now he's in New York, helping sort and track the unprecedented wave of donations that flowed to the city since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

"People want to help, but it can be a second disaster if you don't channel the people who want to volunteer or donate into the right places," Gliniecki said.

Gliniecki, 43, witnessed such a "second disaster" during the 1993 floods that inundated parts of the Midwest. Then working for the American Red Cross, he was assigned to help Missouri manage the donation process. State and federal agencies were not well-coordinated, and efforts suffered.

"Many donated goods were taken to the landfill," Gliniecki said. "It taught us that we have to have a good donation program set up."

Gliniecki wrote a proposal for creating a new position at the State Emergency Management Agency, someone to act as a liaison among all many public, private and volunteer agencies that respond to disasters. Then-Gov. Mel Carnahan appointed Gliniecki to the new position in 1996.

Several states now have statewide volunteer coordinators or are studying the matter.

New York does not, however, and officials in that state called Missouri officials after the World Trade Center catastrophe to ask for Gliniecki by name.

Since Sept. 19, Gliniecki has been traveling between state offices in Albany, the disaster site in New York City and the seven warehouses he helped establish where donated items could be entered into a database.