HOUSTON \u2014 Humanitarian efforts are ramping up in response to the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela around the world and in Texas, as the death toll and number of missing people continue to climb.<\/p>\n
Local Venezuelan communities are leading some of the relief efforts around the state, including one Houston organization that is spearheading a call to action.<\/p>\n
Volunteers spent Monday afternoon sorting, loading and unloading donations at Accion Social – Venezuela, a nonprofit in Houston\u2019s Westchase area inside Right Move Self Storage. The volunteers are members of the local Venezuelan community, coming together to help survivors in their homeland in the face of tragedy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born in Venezuela, but I came here 20 years ago. I love my home country and this country as well,\u201d said Monica Villalobos, a volunteer.<\/p>\n
The organization is on a growing list of collection sites around the Houston metro and other Texas cities such as Dallas, joining a worldwide humanitarian effort for thousands in need.<\/p>\n
Diana Mendt, the founder, says she launched the nonprofit in 2006 to support Venezuelan immigrants.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born in Venezuela. My dad was German, and my mom Italian,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
An architect by trade, Mendt said she came to the U.S. to get a master’s degree in 1985 and stayed.<\/p>\n
She and her husband initially operated the nonprofit in her garage before moving it to a warehouse and later to the air-conditioned storage building where donations, including clothes, bedding and school supplies, are stored and shipped to Venezuela.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ship to Venezuela every month, about 15 boxes, 20 boxes,\u201d said Mendt.<\/p>\n
Currently, they are not accepting clothing donations, but they\u2019re requesting other items needed for relief efforts, including non-perishable food, first aid supplies, personal hygiene items, bedsheets, blankets, towels, diapers, flashlights and batteries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese people are doing an amazing job,\u201d said Mendt, regarding the dozens of volunteers who have come by to help.<\/p>\n
Villalobos and her son, Frank Diaz, are urging more people to volunteer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re looking for like strong people, because there\u2019s a lot of boxes and heavy boxes,\u201d said Diaz.<\/p>\n
Accion Social – Venezuela is taking donations for earthquake relief from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday, July 3, at 12180 West Houston Center Blvd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Humanitarian efforts are ramping up in response to the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela around the world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[14209,65180,132,134,133,1570,102,138,14210,223,82,27,26986,1569,15717,835],"class_list":["post-355867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-latest-human-interest-stories","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-human-interest","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-editors-picks","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-valencia-jones","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}