Early on Wednesday, Sept. 20, Hurricane Maria, a powerful Category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds, made direct landfall on Puerto Rico causing severe damage to Puerto Rico’s infrastructure and vegetation. As a result, the people of Puerto Rico are facing a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. With all of this in mind, the Puerto Rico Relief Fund of South Central Wisconsin (PRRF-SCW) has been formed right here in Madison to address the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico.

“There are so many people coming together to get involved with this. It’s mostly a Puerto Rican coalition with other allies who have family in Puerto Rico,” says Veronica Figueroa-Velez, executive director of UNIDOS, who is helping to spearhead this effort. “It all started with many people contacting other people and asking, ‘What can we do?’ We received a number of calls at UNIDOS asking where to donate money because they didn’t trust the government and what was the best way to support Puerto Rico. We quickly started connecting with each other and we formed this coalition.”

The purpose of this fund is to organize and coordinate work in south-central Wisconsin aimed at providing disaster recovery assistance to Puerto Rico. In addition, the fund will seek to inform residents, community leaders, businesses, and other organizations on the best ways to help the people of Puerto Rico recover from this natural disaster and to identify appropriate and effective channels for delivery of disaster relief assistance.

Downed power lines and debris are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

There are nearly 5,000 Puerto Ricans who reside in south-central Wisconsin and they all remain closely tied to their families back on the island.

“It’s a small and tight-knit Puerto Rican community here in Dane County, but fortunately we have contacts with other Puerto Ricans throughout the state which has helped to coordinate our efforts to help,” Figueroa-Velez says. “Another thing that we will be working on besides gathering money and supplies is calling Congress to make sure they support Puerto Rico, as well, and for them to remove the Jones Act. There’s no reason why other countries shouldn’t be allowed to help and send help.”

UNIDOS, a local nonprofit agency which provides culturally-relevant programs and services for the Dane county Latinx community, has been spearheading the relief effort along with the Latino Consortium for Action, and other Dane County organizations. Since phone lines are down and more than 95 percent of wireless cell towers out of service in Puerto Rico, many Americans have heard little or nothing from dear relatives on the island, including Figueroa-Velez.

“My brother called me very briefly five days after the hurricane. It was a very brave conversation. He went to get some gasoline and the gas station let him borrow the phone and he told us that mom and dad and sister were fine … and then the phone got dropped,” Figueroa-Velez says. “We haven’t heard from them since. We don’t know if my mom is not in the best house … so I’m worried about that, too, or if she gets sick and there’s no place to take her. We don’t know if they have enough supplies, enough food, enough water. We haven’t heard from them and we call every day – 3,4,5,6 times a day.”

The Puerto Rico Relief Fund-South Central Wisconsin (PRRF-SCW) has scheduled a press conference for Friday, Sept. 29, 1 p.m. at the Latino Chamber of Commerce, 2881 Commerce Park Dr., Suite E in Fitchburg where they will talk further about their relief efforts for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurrican Maria.

“How you can donate, where you can donate, what you can do … we will release all of that information at the press conference tomorrow,” Figueroa-Velez says. “We will be launching the web page and releasing all of the information there, too. You can also come right into UNIDOS and drop off a check or cash for the people in Puerto Rico.”