Hurricane Maria Rebuild Effort PR

Dear family, friends, and “friends of friends,” 

We moved to our beautiful island 3 years ago and we’ve fallen in love with Puerto Rico. As you know, Hurricane Maria has decimated most of the island – as it was the most powerful storm to hit the island in over 100 years.

It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see these images on TV and on Facebook. We have so many friends on the island that will need our support. This hurricane completely devastated our community and the neighboring towns. The early reports are the flood surge is 15-20ft (in some areas 30-40ft) higher than the previous record high watermark in Puerto Rico. And many of the stores have been cleaned out last week in response to Hurricane Irma and Puerto Rico's humanitarian efforts to their neighboring islands. 

Our goal here is to help by reaching out to our network for support. We need your help.  We will be raising funds to be distributed directly to those neighbors of ours in desperate need of our help. Please consider to donate to this fund, or to any of the other funds that have been set up.  

I completely understand if you feel hesitant or skeptical to donate because you are not sure that the resources will be allocated appropriately. If I were in your shoes, I might feel the same way. But you have our word – every dollar raised will go directly to people in need and the rebuilding effort.  We will be working with faith communities and trusted leaders in our towns to distribute responsibly (in fact, we will document the effort and give you updates on how you’ve helped). 

I don’t know how else to say this, but we feel called to do this. Puerto Rico has been so good to us and this is our turn to “love back.” We need your help. Please, please, please join the effort and give, share, tweet, like and retweet!

God bless you,

Mike & Vick

PS - GoFundMe has asked us to be specific on how the funds will be used. Our resources will be primarily invested toward the rebuild effort.  Many people have stepped up and are doing amazing things to help their neighbors in need. Two in particular are Jonathan Ocasio and Bruce Clark. They are very well organized and have earned a great reputation to be effective stewards of resources.  

Recipients:

Jonathan Ocasio at Mar Azul

website: http://www.marazul.church/

Bruce Clark at Trinity PR

website: http://trinitypr.org/