Venezuelans in Georgia come together to send food and medicine to the country after two massive earthquakes

Venezuelans and Latinos from around the metro area gathered over the weekend just outside of Plaza Las Americas, in Lilburn, to collect aid materials to send to Venezuela in the wake of earthquakes that devastated the country. By the end of the drive, volunteers had gathered 107 tons of food, personal hygiene items, and clothing. 

The death toll from last Wednesday’s quakes, which registered magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, has risen to 1,719 people, with more than 5,000 injured and 15,000 displaced, according to the Venezuelan government. Those numbers are expected to rise: Over 44,000 people are believed to be missing, according to unofficial figures gathered by civilians reporting their family members still unaccounted for. Hundreds of residential buildings collapsed during the quakes.

Principito Foundation, a nonprofit supporting low-income Hispanic families in Georgia, organized over 60 donation centers in the state—not just at Plaza Las Americas but also in Doraville, Augusta, Acworth, Macon, and other cities. Over 600 people signed up to volunteer, said Soraly Arteaga, the Venezuelan president and founder of the foundation. Some had family members who were pulled out from the rubble, she said. One volunteer’s father and siblings had to be rescued from a collapsed building; a friend of Soraly’s lost his brother-in-law as well as the brother-in-law’s family. 

“Nosotros como fundación estamos organizando esto y se ha tenido una avalancha de personas colaborando y haciendo todo este trabajo para seguir todas estas semanas, porque esta tragedia que vivió venezolano es de no es de días, no es de semanas, sino que esto posiblemente dure meses,” she said. As a foundation, we are organizing this, and there has been an outpouring of people collaborating and doing all this work to keep going over the coming weeks. After all, the tragedy Venezuelans are experiencing isn’t a matter of days or weeks—it could potentially last for months.

In the upcoming days, Principito Foundation will continue to gather donations of nonperishables, hygiene items, and rescue equipment. Soraly expects Venezuela to experience food shortages in the coming weeks, though residents have some experience with that: Even before the natural disaster, about 40 percent of the population was experiencing food insecurity and about 56 percent lived in extreme poverty, according to research from the European Commission. 

Venezuelans are one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in Georgia, with a population that’s spiked over 257 percent since 2010, according to a report from the Latino Community Fund. The state has the third-largest Venezuelan population in the U.S. after Florida and Texas, with 57,000 people from the country. 

Here is a list of organizations that have been working with communities in Venezuela for years and are accepting donations to support those affected by the natural disaster: 

• El Principito Foundation’s GoFundMe 
• I Love Venezuela Foundation, which is organizing a supplies donation center in Miami 
• Caritas Venezuela, a nonprofit that has been working with the most vulnerable populations in Venezuela for years 
• Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), a nonprofit supporting communities after natural disasters 
• UNICEF Venezuela, which estimates that 680,000 children need humanitarian assistance
• Doctors Without Borders 
• World Central Kitchen 

We’ll update these links as we confirm other organizations providing support in the aftermath of the earthquakes.