Staff Writer

With donations pouring in at the pace of a tropical storm, one group drafted volunteers and another called up temporary workers to process checks in recent days.

Meanwhile, Jewish organizations are already distributing millions of dollars raised for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Allocations will benefit both Jews and non-Jews in the Gulf region.

Chief among Jewish groups with relief funds is United Jewish Communities, which by Tuesday had collected $12.7 million from donors and its network of federations.

Senior vice president for UJC consulting Barry Swartz said his organization was working through local Jewish institutions to ensure accountability.

UJC has already given $1 million each to the Houston and Baton Rouge Jewish federations. In Houston, funds will support a faith-based program joining religious groups throughout the city to feed evacuees there.

In Louisiana, money will initially assist the Baton Rouge Jewish federation in expanding infrastructure to provide services such as housing and mental health counseling to victims.

Swartz noted that both the overall population and the number of Jews in Baton Rouge have more than doubled in the last three weeks.

UJC may also set up a Hebrew Free Loan Society, which makes interest-free loans, in the affected area, he suggested.

Swartz said UJC allocations will be decided on a "case by case, circumstance by circumstance" basis.

"Can we be helpful? We want to make sure our efforts are targeted and effective," he said.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington has directed some of the $747,883 it has raised to UJC, but also will allocate some of the funds on its own.

Federation executive vice president and CEO Misha Galperin said his group may assist Jewish families that have resettled in the area since the storm.

The committee charged with making decisions on local allocations was scheduled to meet today, Galperin said.

The Union of Reform Judaism has allocated $545,000 of the more than $2 million it has raised in the past three weeks, splitting it among Jewish and non-Jewish organizations.

Rabbi Marla Feldman, director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, said the movement is directing its monies "where the needs are" and does not divide its relief efforts between Jewish and general relief groups by any fixed percentage.

None of the money has yet gone to the four Reform congregations damaged in the storm; movement lay leaders and staffers will be evaluating their needs in the coming weeks.

But five synagogues in areas where evacuees have settled received "mini-grants" of $5,000 or $10,000 to cover costs associated with relief efforts at the synagogues and their absorption of new community members.

URJ has also sent $150,000 to the United Jewish Communities and $10,000 to the Jewish Federation of Baton Rouge. And it has set aside $125,000 for its Jacobs' Ladder project. The movement has set up a staging and distribution center at a URJ-owned Utica, Miss., campsite to distrbute food and supplies collected from its members across North America.

A significant chunk of the Reform movement's money ‹ $235,000 ‹ has gone to nine relief agencies that deal with hunger, community development, poverty and health care. These include America's Second Harvest, Oxfam America International Medical Corps, American Friends Service Committee, Direct Relief International, Mercy Corps, the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta, and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism also has distributed funds to America's Second Harvest, which garnered $36,000 of its $241,000 allocation this week.

The Conservative movement sent $150,000 to UJC for its food aid program in Houston, $10,000 to Interfaith Ministries to help with housing for evacuees in Houston and $30,000 to agencies in the Biloxi/Gulfport area. USCJ also directed $10,000 to a Catholic high school in Katy, Texas. The funds will buy textbooks and school lunches for 37 displaced students from poor families.

USCJ director of public policy Mark Waldman said a Conservative rabbi had alerted the organization to the school's efforts, and officials felt it was a "very worthwhile cause."

United Synagogue also is paying $5,000 for a rabbi and cantor for High Holiday services at Congregation Beth Israel, the Conservative shul in Biloxi, Miss.

Waldman said that the small congregation ‹ which is unsure if its building is still structurally sound ‹ usually hires a student rabbi for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Thirteen of the shul's 90 famlies lost their homes in the storm.

Waldman said some of USCJ 's relief funds would likely go toward repairing Conservative synagogues damaged in the storm. He also stressed that the group wanted to set aside money for intermediate and longer-term needs, noting that donations often plunge 45-60 days after disasters.

Meanwhile, B'nai B'rith International has taken in some $760,000 in donations for Katrina survivors.

By press time, much of that total had been allocated to six areas of assistance.

"We look for services that we feel need to be met ... that are not being addressed fully by other groups," said BBI director of communications Debbie Auerbach-Deutsch.

These include grants to young people through the Jewish Children's Regional Services of New Orleans, to training of clergy in the hurricane zone through Disaster Chaplaincy Services, and to area churches and synagogues ‹ including Congregation B'nai Israel of Biloxi, Miss.

BBI also allocated funds for direct nutritional aid through Brother's Brother Foundation/Food for the Poor and free and low-cost medicine for survivors from the Louisiana Emergency Pharmacy Support.

In addition, BBI is opening up 40-50 vacant apartments in its nationwide senior housing network to elderly evacuees.

For its part, the Orthodox Union has earmarked $20,000 from its relief fund to a Memphis yeshiva that has accepted 21 students from New Orleans. Future allocations, said a spokeperson, will be based on need.

The American Jewish Committee has not yet earmarked the $700,000 it has collected. Meanwhile, spokesperson Ken Bandler said a portion will go toward immediate needs, and the rest to longer-term projects such as rebuilding churches and synagogues destroyed by Katrina.

WJW news editor Paula Amann contributed to this article.