Pembroke Pines police launch aid drive for Venezuela earthquake victims

Venezuelan families across Broward are turning The Shops at Pembroke Gardens into a drop-off point for food, water and medical supplies as the Pembroke Pines Police Department prepares a Tuesday collection drive for earthquake victims in northern Venezuela.

The drive is scheduled from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 527 SW 145th Terrace in Pembroke Pines. Organizers said they will not accept clothes or linens, a sign they want donations that can move quickly into emergency and recovery work rather than items that are harder to sort and distribute after a disaster.

The local effort is unfolding alongside a wider South Florida response that has moved through neighborhoods, nonprofits and immigrant networks since two earthquakes struck Venezuela less than a minute apart, with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5. United Nations News said at least 235 people had been killed by June 26 and as many as 6.8 million people could be affected, while CBS Miami reported that the death toll had already swung from nearly 200 on June 25 to more than 900 in a June 26 update, with about 1,000 injuries.

Miami-Dade County said the disaster damaged homes, hospitals, schools and critical infrastructure and displaced families, and it said monetary donations remain the most effective way to help because responders can buy region-appropriate supplies quickly. The county also said it is home to one of the largest Venezuelan communities in the United States, which helps explain why the quake has triggered such an immediate response from Broward to Doral.

Global Empowerment Mission, based in Doral, activated its emergency response and began assembling food, water, hygiene supplies and medical necessities. The county’s relief page lists drop-offs at 1850 NW 84th Ave., Unit 100, in Doral, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CBS Miami reported that GEM had already raised $170,000 by Wednesday night.

For some South Florida organizers, the response has been intensely personal. Jorge Perez, a GEM executive board member, said he was trying to account for childhood friends in Venezuela, and Santi Chumaceiro of I Love Venezuela said Venezuelans wanted to help “with their souls.” In Pembroke Pines, the police department’s role is to give that impulse a place to go, and to connect a citywide act of giving to a disaster still unfolding hundreds of miles away.