Valencia Flood Disaster Fund

We are a group of international friends and family (Zoe, Georgia, Caoimhin, Bastiaan, and Hernán) living in beautiful Valencia, Spain.

As you may have seen, our ‘home away from home' was destroyed by devastating floods a few weeks ago. The government response was utterly inadequate (we didn’t get a warning until well after the streets had begun to fill with water, at which point people were still outside shopping, working, and driving in their cars). At the moment, the death toll is just over 200, but we suspect it is far, far higher.

Together, we decided to take matters into our own hands and go directly into the affected areas to help. On our first day, armed with just a few shovels, water, and food, we were shocked to enter the pueblos and see the devastation was far worse than expected. There were hundreds of cars piled on top of each other as far as the eye could see, with no idea of how many bodies were trapped inside. At this point, we realised the scale of this was beyond what we had seen reported.

On day 5, some towns had yet to receive emergency help; volunteers walking 10 KM from the city centre were the only people in sight. We met a man who had been trapped on his terrace for 3 days with his elderly mother, with no food, power, or liquids. He was visibly traumatised, believing for every second of those 3 days that no one was going to come for them and they were going to die there on that terrace.

Each day, our awareness of the needs improved, and as our team grew (we are now 50+ members in our WhatsApp chat), we could send out a group daily to the affected areas — often walking 20 km a day! Now, we are starting to get to know local residents, and they are passing our details on to their friends so that each day, we have new deliveries to make and houses to clean.

With your donations, we can do amazing things! So far you have supported us to:

- Purchase and donate 13 pressure washers

- Clean six houses, half a bakery, and three streets

- Buy a cake and presents for an 8-year-old girl for her birthday

- Organise a group of volunteers to reach Catarroja daily, in rotation

- Deliver boots, socks, and a first aid kit to a man with infected cuts on his leg (the mud and water in the towns are now full of harmful bacteria)

- Buy an airfryer for a man who has lost his entire home (he had no way of cooking).

- Distribute hygiene products, food, and water among Catarroja residents

- Support World Central Kitchen by serving hot meals to local people

We thank you so much for your support in helping us to raise money for the Valencians - every donation, no matter how small, makes a HUGE difference! As the clean-up gets underway, we’re looking towards restoring these people’s homes, which requires more significant funds for furniture and electrical appliances (stay tuned for updates!).

‘Amunt Valencia!’