Community Kitchen on the Venezuelan Border

--THIS CAMPAIGN IS COMPLETED. THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT SUCCESSFUL. FIND OUR NEW CAMPAIGN HERE--

This project sponsors a community organization to provide more than 1,000 servings of hearty soup each week to displaced families along the Colombia-Venezuela border.

We've been cooking on the border since February 2021. This is our second fundraising cycle - find the first one here or learn more on our website.

Here's a short video about what we do:

This campaign is managed by The Resilience Fund, a charitable organization in Texas, to sponsor Asociación Deredez, a community-led non-profit on the border between Colombia and Venezuela. (Specifically, in Villa del Rosario, outside Cúcuta.)

Each week we send $160 to fund a community kitchen with five part-time staff. A few US dollars go a long way in this humanitarian crisis zone, where violence in Colombia and collapse in Venezuela have left thousands of families displaced.

Many of our beneficiaries eat just once a day. Listen to their testimonies here:

This isn't only about hunger. By directly sponsoring a community organization, we are helping to build the capabilities, authority and profile of a social institution that provides leadership and support in marginalized neighborhoods.

What's in the goal? $160/week for 52 weeks - $8,320

Who gets the money? Transfers go directly to Ana Teresa Castillo, a nationally recognized humanitarian and founder of Asociación Deredez , which she runs out of her small home about 200 meters from the Venezuelan border in Colombia. Ana Teresa herself has been a victim of the region's long humanitarian tragedy; she was displaced by the 1999 La Gabarra Masacre and Venezeula's 2015 expulsion of Colombians. She saw her husband executed by militants and has repeatedly faced threats from criminal organizations. But, she says, she's turned her pain to love, and dedicates herself wholly to community service.

What's in a soup? 220 pounds of beef bone, plus yuca, potato, plantain, carrots, green onions, squash, cilantro, pasta and salt, cooked in 4 giant pots.

A live record of all transfers made to Asociación Deredez is available here.

Please consider supporting this project. We are searching for institutional donors who can fund this project long-term. If you or anyone you know might be interested in taking up our cause, please reach out.

It makes a big difference to the people we support, not only because their bellies are full, but also because they know that someone somewhere learned about their struggles and wanted to help out.

It doesn't go unnoticed. Just check out what Colombian TV news had to say about our project (only Spanish):

Keep scrolling for more photos and videos of this project.