Puerto Rico Construction Brigades

Building Community Construction Brigades, with a long history of work in Puerto Rico’s poorest communities, will be organizing groups of volunteers throughout the year to travel to the island and work in reconstruction projects in marginalized communities where little or no government programs will be available.

Our first project will be to build concrete retaining walls in a rainforest community where landslides resulting from hurricanes Irma and Maria are threatening several homes. We will then join forces with an island-wide community-based mutual aid project to help boost their effectiveness in the varied communities they serve.

For this effort we are trying to raise $15,000. Out of that, $5000 will be used to buy a cement mixer and attendant tools (which will become a community asset for the next twenty years, hopefully) and the other $10,000 is for rental of a backhoe to dig out the backs of half-buried homes, and for purchasing materials—cement, sand, gravel, steel rebar, and wood for forms.

All money goes directly to the project. Everyone is all volunteer and paying their own expenses, including me, the organizer, Ruel Bernard.

Any amount of support helps.

If you’re interested in volunteering in person, contact me.

This is an act of love and solidarity.