Houston Venezuelan community organizes donations after Caracas earthquakes

Houston-area Venezuelan residents moved quickly after back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela on Wednesday, June 24, opening donation sites across Katy, Houston, Dickinson and Friendswood so local families can send aid before a Monday, June 29 shipment. The effort reflects how Harris County’s Venezuelan community is carrying the burden of a disaster thousands of miles away through restaurant counters, neighborhood storefronts and volunteer drop-off points.

The quakes hit northern Venezuela as a rare seismic doublet of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5. The U.S. Geological Survey placed the stronger quake 16 kilometers southwest of Morón at a depth of 10 kilometers. As buildings collapsed and people fled into the streets around Caracas and across nearby states, casualty figures rose rapidly, first to at least 32 dead and 700 injured, then to 164 dead and 971 injured, and later to around 235 dead and 4,300 injured as officials continued to assess the scale of the damage.

Venezuela’s main airport in Caracas was reported damaged and closed, complicating the flow of aid just as the government declared a state of emergency and international help began coming from the United States, Mexico and Colombia. The hardest-hit areas included La Guaira and communities near Caracas, where people were still digging through rubble for survivors.

In the Houston area, residents can drop off clothing, bottled water, nonperishable food, medications, personal hygiene products and lanterns at Beer and Grill on Westheimer Parkway in Katy, Lieskawin Style on North Mason Road in Katy, Pa Que La Negra on Highway 6 North in Houston, Pasteles Edward on Applewhite Drive in Katy, Los Cuchos in Friendswood, Pa Que Maru on 42nd Street in Dickinson and La Mora on South Mason Road in Katy. Mi Querencia Latin Market on Westheimer Parkway in Katy was also listed as a donation point.

The spread of collection sites across Katy, Houston, Dickinson and Friendswood shows how Venezuelan families in Harris County are turning familiar local businesses into relief hubs. For many households, the response is personal: relatives, friends and former neighbors are still inside a disaster zone where roads, airports and hospitals are all under pressure, and every box packed in Houston is tied to a family waiting for it to arrive.