T-Mobile Prepaid Hurricane Help

I was suprised to learn that T-Mobile has stepped up to help with hurricane Katrina. My wife uses T-Mobile prepaid. We both use prepaid phones in order to avoid the contracts. Well, I noticed that after she refilled her phone the last time with a $50 card, she received over 900 minutes, which happens with $100 refills. Not only that, my father-in-law, whom I gave a prepaid, and my wife's cousin, had more minutes than what they refilled last. I though it was some promotion. I have a crapload of night and weekend minutes on my Virgin prepaid service, so I called T-Mobile To Go prepaid customer service to find out what happened.

The T-Mobile To Go customer service rep checked into it for me and she told me that prepaid customers in Texas automatically topped up when they fell below their last refill level. This was something that T-Mobile did to help their customers who may have been impacted by the hurricane. Fortunately we were not affected by Rita. Yet, we still got free minutes. That's great news. In addition, I got the following from the T-Mobile website:

T-Mobile customers who wish to donate to the American Red Cross can easily do so
by Text Messaging 2HELP. Through the Text 2HELP campaign, customers of
participating wireless carriers can send a text message to “2HELP” (24357)
containing the message “HELP” and a $5 tax-deductible donation will be made to
relief efforts. Donations will appear on customers’ monthly bills or be debited
from prepaid account balances. The Text 2HELP campaign will continue through
October 31, 2005.