Houston Public Media/Melissa Enaje
Officials with Zucarga Express in Katy, Texas said on June 29 they’re at capacity with donations headed to Venezuela.
In the scorching summer Houston heat, Jose Viloria spent all weekend packaging pallets of donation items in the Katy area headed for Venezuela, from bottled water to first-aid kits.
“My family is okay,” Viloria said. “But it’s basically my country. So you feel it’s your family as well. That’s why I feel like the calling of helping, you know, like a lot of people there are suffering.”
Viloria was one of the many volunteers helping at a cargo shipment garage called Metabox Cargo, located about 30 miles west of Houston, days after two back-to-back powerful earthquakes devastated Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and its northern coast on June 24. The earthquakes caused widespread injury and over 1,700 deaths, with thousands more still unaccounted for, according to the Associated Press. Caritas Venezuela, an international aid organization located in the country, reported on Monday that they’ve also received an “extraordinary volume of donations.”
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“The outpouring of generosity has been so great that our main challenge today is not a lack of support, but rather the ability to channel it in an orderly, transparent, and rapid manner to those who need it most,” the organization said via a statement. “Our warehouses and storage facilities have received an extraordinary volume of donations, and we must ensure that this aid does not remain stored away, but reaches the affected families as quickly as possible. An emergency of this magnitude demands organization, methodology, and coordination.”
Houston Public Media/Melissa Enaje
Metabox Cargo Katy is a shipping center that has collected donations for Venezuela and over the June 26 weekend packaged items for shipment after earthquakes devastated the northern coast of the country.
Several collection centers in the Katy and Houston-area, including restaurants and cargo centers, are no longer accepting donations. Organizers say they’re prioritizing shipping what has already been collected, including pallets of water, first-aid kits, tools and hygiene items.
Viloria returned Monday to try and find collection sites in the Houston area that were willing to accept relief items he purchased.
Metabox Cargo was at capacity and was pausing donations.
“Right now the work is logistics, only logistics, no more collection at the moment,” said Metabox Cargo-Katy CEO Cesar Lorenzo. “So maybe it will continue next week. … We need first, distribution of all donations before continuing collection.”
Viloria tried his luck at MSM Cargo, another cargo shipping center located less than three miles away from where he spent the weekend. There, workers were loading pallets filled with boxes of medical equipment and tools wrapped in plastic. Viloria unloaded bottled water and hygiene items from his car into the garage.
MSM Cargo was still accepting donations. Manager Ricardo Fossi said they are trying to bypass a possible two-week wait by not sending relief items over cargo ships.
“We try to put it in Venezuela faster, so we try to use the plane, our plane, no ship,” Fossi said.
Fossi said the most needed items included medical equipment like rubbing alcohol, band-aids, and batteries, since many areas in Venezuela remain without power.
Houston Public Media/Melissa Enaje
Jose Viloria donated multiple items, including water bottles and hygiene items, to MSM Cargo in Katy that was still accepting donations to send abroad.
“We need lighters, flashlights, gloves to get out the construction, hammers, all kinds of stuff because in there we don’t have anything,” Fossi said.
In another Katy-area cargo center, Zucarga Express, boxes line the warehouse close to the roof as an American and a Venezuelan flag hang side-by-side. The garage was filled with boxes of items headed for Venezuela, with no more room for extra donations, they said.
Juan Delgado works at Zucarga Express. He said they’re shipping two containers by water, and they’re filled to capacity.
At Venezuela Social Action, another donation center approximately 12 miles away, a handful of people were still bringing in donations after hours.
Cristobal Perez came after 5 p.m., trying to find out what items were needed. He said he’s grateful his family in Venezuela is OK, but held back tears trying to figure out where all the donations were going to end up.
“The airport in Caracas is broken,” Perez said. “I want to know how they are going to deliver that there.”
He said he will come back in the morning to help.
“Venezuela needs help from all around the world,” Perez said. “Nobody knows how we are going to fix and get back our country. There is no idea how to fix the situation in Venezuela. It is so difficult, and this tragedy, this disaster is so overwhelming, I cannot describe with words what I am feeling.”