{"id":233255,"date":"2026-07-01T22:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/233255\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T22:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:48:07","slug":"venezuela-together-reading-fightin-phils-player-leads-fight-for-relief-in-his-home-country-berks-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/233255\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Venezuela Together\u2019: Reading Fightin Phils player leads fight for relief in his home country | Berks Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>READING, Pa. \u2014 As Aroon Escobar gets ready for another game with the Reading Fightin Phils, his mind is still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfmz.com\/news\/venezuelan-medics-fear-infections-from-quake-injuries-as-search-for-untold-dead-continues\/article_dde3f07a-7169-5d2f-a067-667579ee42db.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">thousands of miles away in Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m from La Guaira, where the earthquake happened. I&#8217;m sad for the people there. I&#8217;m supporting them from here. We&#8217;re working with the team to buy food and help our friends in Venezuela,&#8221; Escobar said.<\/p>\n<p>He says he was playing last Wednesday when he first learned about the earthquakes. Then, his phone rang.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I left the game and my mom called me crying. She thought she wasn&#8217;t going to see me again. It was very sad,&#8221; Escobar said.<\/p>\n<p>His family is safe. But he says several close friends lost their lives. That&#8217;s why this weekend, he wore a wristband with a simple message: &#8220;Venezuela Together.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I try to help as much as I can, but I feel it&#8217;s not enough. I&#8217;d like to be there helping&#8230; lifting any debris&#8230; helping my friends there, their families,&#8221; Escobar said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, instead of watching from afar, he and his teammates are organizing donations to help families back home.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People can write to me on Instagram. We&#8217;re trying to help families near La Guaira with food and supplies. We just hope things get better in Venezuela,&#8221; Escobar said.<\/p>\n<p>As he gets ready for the game, Escobar says being so far from home has made this week even more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Enjoy your family. Love them. As long as you can hug your parents, your brothers or your cousins, do it with all your heart. Today we&#8217;re here&#8230; tomorrow we don&#8217;t know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone interested in helping can contact Escobar through his Instagram account, @aroonescobar10, where he is coordinating efforts to support families in and around La Guaira.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2014 As Aroon Escobar gets ready for another game with the Reading Fightin Phils, his mind&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[100759,93855,1510,5846,5114,100760,128,130,129,44158,5071,31039,31344],"class_list":["post-233255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-aroon-escobar","tag-earthquake","tag-family","tag-friends","tag-instagram","tag-la-guaira","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-fightin-phils","tag-relief","tag-supplies","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}