Rochester volunteers deliver items to earthquake victims in Puerto Rico

Members of the Rochester community recently gathered together to help out Puerto Rico, whose residents are still feeling the effects and seeing damage from a big earthquake and several aftershocks that rattled the island in December.

So much damage was done in the region of Ponce that people have set up camp outside of the city off of the highway because they don’t even feel safe in their own homes. Volunteers from Rochester collected items and then flew down to Puerto Rico and hand-delivered them to the neighborhood of Barrio Clusell, which is a poor neighborhood in Ponce.

They also checked on the nearby town of Yauco. This town has a special connection to Rochester. Rochester resident Edwin Torres’ mother, Norma Mercado is a resident of Puerto Rico and evacuated during the earthquakes because she takes care of her 97-year-old mother in law. Mercado met up with the Rochester volunteers in Yauco.

Most of Puerto Rico has still been feeling daily aftershocks since the original earthquake in December.

It was important that the volunteers reached out and donated items to these more impoverished areas of Ponce. Many residents of that area do without necessities daily, even before the earthquake. The earthquake didn’t help the already grim financial situation the islanders already faced.