Watching the devastation in Venezuela has prompted dozens of people throughout the Bay Area to spring into action to donate relief supplies.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, there was a donation drive at Arepas Latin Cuisine, a Venezuelan restaurant with locations in San Francisco and San Jose; many who went to the San Jose location to donate said they have relatives in Venezuela, and they are heartbroken the death toll is rising.<\/p>\n
Dorly Lopez\u2019s cousins live in Venezuela, so for her, the mission is personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to move. And some fear there is going to be a tsunami,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lopez stopped at the restaurant with full arms and a heavy heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to help. we see the disaster in Venezuela we are heartbroken,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lopez was among many others who were dropping off sleeping pads, clothing, water, first aid kits and diapers at the restaurant.<\/p>\n
There were so many donations that employees had to stuff the items into a closet and a van.<\/p>\n
Not only is Arepas collecting supplies, but the restaurant is also donating a portion of the profits from meals served here to relief efforts in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
For Marianny Mata, watching the devastation from the quake has been especially painful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born and raised in Venezuela and my family lives there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mata worries about those close to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy godmother\u2026 her uncle is missing. He\u2019s been missing and they still haven\u2019t found him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A video from Caracas captured the moment buildings collapsed following two back-to-back magnitude seven plus quakes, prompting the Arepas restaurant in San Francisco to also collect supplies for families in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made me feel horrible made me feel responsible. I just really need to do something,\u201d restaurant owner Joanna Torres said.<\/p>\n
As the frantic search for survivors continues in Venezuela, more than four thousand miles away people in the Bay Area are answering the call to help.<\/p>\n
Medical, baby supplies and nonperishable food were top priorities.<\/p>\n
The first shipment of donations was expected to head to the Red Cross in Caracas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watching the devastation in Venezuela has prompted dozens of people throughout the Bay Area to spring into action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89,9298],"class_list":["post-378510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}