HOPEww's OPERATION DELIVER HOPE: Puerto Rico Disaster Response: UPDATE

Shane Engel • September 29, 2017

UPDATE: We are happy to announce that we were able to successfully send 16 pallets of direct relief to Puerto Rico today! 2 pallets are scheduled to fly out Saturday, October 14 and the rest will be sent by cargo on Sunday. Thank you to all who have contributed to these efforts and a special thank you to the South Florida Churches of Christ for their generosity and the lending of the Broward Church building for our staging area! Please keep Puerto Rico in your prayers as the recovery effort will take months if not years.

HOPEww's OPERATION: DELIVER HOPE

Help us deliver hope to Puerto Rico with much-needed supplies and resources today! https://hopeww.kindful.com/?campaign=272543

Greetings from HOPEww,

As many of you know Puerto Rico is reeling from Hurricane Maria. The storm knocked out the island's entire aging power grid, blocked roads and left entire communities isolated. As of today (9/29), 80% of the cell phone towers are still down and it could take months for full electrical power to be restored. Water systems are not operational and emergency systems are scarce. Please be praying for these issues to be resolved quickly.

Thankfully, we have been able to communicate with our members in Puerto Rico, and despite extremely difficult living conditions, our partners are safe. The citizens of Puerto Rico are facing a long period of recovery from Hurricane Maria, and your help is needed now more than ever.

HOPE worldwide has been able to supply immediate cash relief of $5000 and now we would like to send shipments of much-needed supplies and resources to San Juan. We have set up a special service by which you can purchase goods and have them shipped directly to our supply center in Florida, to be sent to San Juan. The Gooddler organization has been an excellent partner in the past and has developed a special page that has the requested items from HOPEww San Juan. Please note that these materials need to be ordered by October 3 to make the first shipment.

http://gooddler.com/Wishlist/10182

Thank you for all your love and support for those in Puerto Rico and beyond!
With gratitude

The HOPEww Team

Puerto Rico Update and Request:

Over a week ago, Hurricane Maria cut right through the middle of Puerto Rico and left a path of destruction and knocked out electricity across the entire Island of Puerto Rico. The situation has gone from bad to worse as relief opportunities have been halted by poor conditions and airport closings. HOPEww has been actively looking for ways to transport assets to the Island and despite many leads we have yet to find a way through. We are working with our partners in Dominican Republic as explore chartering a ferry to deliver supplies form there.

This is bad on any island, but an island with nearly 4 million inhabitants, as is the case in Puerto Rico, it can be devastating. At this point gas, food and water are in extremely short supplies. About 97% residents are still in the dark as of Wednesday (9/27), Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said. About half of the residents do not have running water. Power may be out for many weeks which prevent many other necessities from being available.

Many concerned HOPEww friends in the United States are of Puerto Rican descent and are asking for help for their families as well as the local churches. Currently we are asking Florida churches to collect some of the much needed supplies and we hoping to airlift them to Puerto Rico. Please pray that we can find a means to transfer the goods from Miami to Puerto Rico, as this is our challenge at the moment.

If you have viable connections that would be helpful in the transportation of resources to Puerto Rico, please email us hope.worldwide@hopeww.org. HOPE de Puerto Rico has already begun organizing volunteers and cleanup efforts, but we need the ability to send them goods and volunteers.

With Gratitude,
The HOPEww Staff