ALCOVA familyHurricane Maria relief

Veronica Velez, the office manager in our ALCOVA Midlothian office, is originally from Puerto Rico.  Her parents currently live in Trujillo Alto, and while they are quite happy that their lives and home was spared during Hurricane Maria, they now have no power and very little food and water.  Things that we take for granted, like clean, cold water are now luxury items and will be for many months...

Banks are still not open with any regularity, and with power down for months to come, ATM, debit cards, etc. all are unusable and will continue be extremely difficult for the foreseeable future.  The airports are closed so no one can get in or out (they originally were going to hand-deliver food and other essentials themselves, but this unfortunately is not an option).

Veronica’s brother and brother-in-law were both also greatly affected by the category 5 storm.  Her brother lost everything and has a 17-year old daughter (Veronica’s niece) who requires special attention for a unique medical condition.  Making sure that her niece gets the care that is needed is especially weighing heavily on Veronica’s mind. 

I only found out about all of this after specifically asking Veronica to share her family's status with us at our Monday morning production meeting.  She did not offer any information nor details of her internal challenges until that point (which is typical of Veronica's positive, can-do attitude). 

After learning the extent of these challenges, I wanted to do something to help her and her family so I put together this page in specific efforts to rally the ALCOVA family with the challenge to raise some money in order to ease the financial burden of Veronica and her family (which has been extraordinary) over the last few days as she works to purchase, package, and ship items and funds to help keep her loved ones afloat during these trying times (since these items just simply are not available there, and what items are available are greatly skewed in price due to the unbelievable demand). 
 
A little would go a long way…  she told me that a 70 lb box of food can be shipped for as little as $18.  She is primarily buying canned food, beans, rice, batteries, and other easily shipped durable dry goods. 

As you can imagine, now is a very difficult time for her and her family and anything you can do to help alleviate her burden would be greatly appreciated! 

We plan to have GoFundMe disburse the funds directly from their account to Veronica's personal account ASAP this week (week of 10/2/17) so that she can get the fruits of your generous donations into her family's hands ASAP during their time of need.  We are communicating with GoFundMe now on how to get this done most efficiently.  Thank you again!

-Ryan Charles, and the ALCOVA Midlothian team

***UPDATE:  You guys are AMAZING!  We hit our original goal of $2,000 in just over an hour from launch!  As a result, I have set a new goal since the amount of support that her family will need is easily much more than the 2k...  What a delightful surprise it will be to her when we deliver the amazing news!  I am so thankful for the generosity.  God bless you all for the thoughtfulness and kindness!***

***Second Update:  As we wind down our fundraising efforts, I want to say THANK YOU so very much to everyone for the outpouring of kindness and love.  We raised almost 5k for Veronica and her family, which will go so amazingly far in helping them stay safe, fed, healthy, and in getting their feet back on the ground in the months to come.***