ORLANDO, Fla. — Central Floridians with ties to Venezuela are hugging their loved ones a little tighter this week after two earthquakes with 7.7 and 7.5 magnitudes rocked the country on Wednesday.
William Diaz, founder of Casa de Venezuela in Orlando, said his organization has spent the first 24 hours since the earthquakes evaluating the need and where specifically to send aid, especially considering many roadways and buildings have been destroyed.
“We need to be responsible, and we need to know exactly to whom to send it,” he said. “The idea is that we just establish exactly what you need to send. You cannot start collecting clothes, and then what people are needing is a first aid material… We don’t want to send food that the people got no access how to process those food.”
Diaz said that in Central Florida, there are roughly 189,000 Venezuelans living in the region.
People like Gabriel Garcia Lanz, a Venezuelan who now calls Central Florida home, have spent hours since Wednesday’s earthquakes attempting to contact and locate family and friends in Venezuela. Garcia Lanz said his family is safe.
“We have only been able to communicate through phones specifically because cell phones, the majority are not charged, so we are speaking mainly through older phones, landlines, that are through cable and that don’t show images. Only some people have been able to call and record like what you’re seeing on social media,” Lanz said, translated from Spanish.
Lanz said there’s a huge need for resources and aid for Venezuela, and he said his long-term concern is getting proper aid to people in need.
“I think that now people are going to suffer more in the sense that resources are not going to arrive, they’re not going to have fuel. If someone is sick, it can be a real problem because the few doctors that they have are having to help the thousands of injured,” Lanz said.
Mayol Goldberg is Venezuelan and a producer at El Sol Network TV in Kissimmee. He is helping plan fundraising events this upcoming Saturday and opportunities to broadcast information about how people can donate.
“We will be hosting a live broadcast starting at 10:00 a.m. We are also setting up a collection point for non-perishable goods, which we will channel through the appropriate organizations,” Goldberg said, translated from Spanish. “The solidarity of Latin America and the world is with Venezuela today and is focused on the rescue of the nation because we are starting to speak about rescuing Venezuela. We are committed to ensuring that our Venezuelan brothers and sisters will be reunited.”