Pasadena restaurant leads donation drive for Venezuela earthquake survivors
Volunteers in Pasadena send aid to Venezuela
Chamo Venezuelan Cuisine has shipped hundreds of donated boxes of medical supplies, diapers and bedding since last week's twin earthquakes, with donations pouring in from as far as Santa Barbara and Bakersfield.
PASADENA, Calif. - A Pasadena restaurant is part of the international relief effort following last week's deadly earthquakes in Venezuela, with owner Yesika Baker turning her dining room into a donation hub for displaced families thousands of miles away.
For the last few nights, boxes filled with medical supplies, clean linens, diapers and baby formula have stacked up inside Chamo Venezuelan Cuisine. By Monday afternoon, the last of those boxes were loaded up and sent on their way.
More than 1,700 people have died and more than 5,000 have been injured since the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes struck Venezuela last Wednesday. Aid organizations say hundreds of thousands of children are now in need of help.
Baker was working at her restaurant when the earthquakes hit.
"Everybody was in shock. So my employees started calling their families. No answer. We called our families. No answer. It was very, very sad," Baker said.
She has since learned that two of her employees now have relatives who were left with nowhere to go.
"A lot of people, they can't go back, you know, to their homes. That is why we're asking for sleeping bags. We're asking for your blankets and stuff like that, because in one family, now there are five families," Baker said.
The relief effort started small, Baker said, with a flood of phone calls from strangers asking how they could help. It quickly grew into a full-scale donation drive, with boxes pouring in from as far away as Santa Barbara and Bakersfield.
Volunteer Alfredo Papadakis has helped load and deliver the donations on multiple trips.
"So this is our third trip with this. I'd say that we're putting 20, 25 boxes on each trip, depending. You have to understand that each one has — if it's not medical supplies or clean linens or diapers, formula, whatever it is — and it's all filled to the brim," Papadakis said.
Papadakis said the outpouring of generosity has included strangers with no personal connection to Venezuela.
"In the most difficult tragedies, right, in the worst type of crisis, you really find out who people really are. When things are bad, who's really going to be there? Sometimes it's just a perfect stranger," he said.
He recalled one moment that stood out: a man who handed over $500 in cash on the spot.
"He just took money out of his pocket. 'Whatever I can do to help.' He's not just paying to leave. It's like a complete stranger — he has no tie to the country, has no tie to anything. But it just came from his heart," Papadakis said.
International aid groups are moving food, medical supplies and rescue teams into Venezuela as tens of thousands remain unaccounted for. Venezuelan officials say more than 30,000 emergency workers and roughly 2,700 foreign responders are involved in the search effort.
Chamo Venezuelan Cuisine is one small link in that larger supply chain. Organizers said the donations collected in Pasadena are now headed to Olarte Transport in downtown Los Angeles, where they will be loaded onto a cargo plane for the roughly 3,600-mile flight south to Venezuela.
With the restaurant's role in this round of donations complete, Baker said what happens next depends on what the transport company can carry and what families in Venezuela still need most.
"This is just the beginning, just the beginning. I hope they receive their help, they receive all these boxes. They're coming from everywhere. And then I hope we can do more and more and more to help," Baker said.
Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, said in a social media post Monday that the country has received more than 1,000 tons of supplies so far.