Coconut Creek volunteers pack relief kits for Venezuela earthquake victims

Volunteers at Food For The Poor in Coconut Creek spent a Friday morning packing hundreds of disaster relief kits for families reeling from the earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24. The boxes carried more than basic supplies: volunteers also tucked in handwritten notes meant to offer encouragement to people facing the aftermath of the disaster.

The earthquakes, magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 events that hit seconds apart, left a trail of death and devastation across the northwestern part of the country. Search-and-rescue operations were still underway as the full scale of the need continued to emerge. UNICEF said 1.8 million people, including 680,000 children, needed humanitarian assistance and estimated that US$52 million was required for the earthquake response in Venezuela.

Food For The Poor, headquartered in Coconut Creek at 6401 Lyons Road, mobilized its emergency response team to establish supply lines to in-country partners including Caritas and the Order of Malta. Relief shipments included food, MannaPack Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, hygiene kits and medical supplies, with donations also helping fund purchases inside Venezuela so aid could be matched more closely to conditions on the ground.

Cesar Guevara, Food For The Poor’s director of strategic partnerships, said the response carried personal meaning because he was born in the affected area and still has family members and friends there. He said Venezuela was already in a state of emergency before the quakes and that hospitals were short on medical supplies, making the timing of the disaster especially severe for communities already under strain.

The organization is also organizing relief packing events in Doral, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. It is accepting disaster-relief donations at its Coconut Creek headquarters as it works with nongovernmental partners to move supplies into the country and distribute them where they are needed most.

Founded by Ferdinand Mahfood in 1982, Food For The Poor says it is one of the largest hunger and poverty relief charities in the United States. The group said that from 2019 to 2023 it provided 943 million meals and $3.2 billion in aid across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Caritas Internationalis also activated its network to coordinate solidarity and support for the emergency response, while the World Food Programme said it had more than 3,000 metric tons of food in Venezuela and additional supplies at the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot in Panama.