Interact Sponsors Drive for Hurricane Victims

In November, the FCHS Interact Club sponsored a supply drive to help those affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The supply drive was a major success, with an entire cartfull of the requested items being donated to the effort.

The idea for the drive came from senior Kyandra Rivera-DeJesus who had planned to visit Puerto Rico with her family for Christmas. Then Hurricane Maria hit.

Rivera DeJesus contacted her grandfather in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to figure out how to help the needy with the supply drive. “Setting the drive up wasn’t the hard part, it was getting in contact with my family that was the problem,” said Rivera-DeJesus.

However, once she was able to reach her grandfather, he and the Rivera-DeJesus family contacted a local official in Arecibo to determine how to provide affected families with necessities that have become scarce due to the damage from the hurricane. In addition to a continued lack of power and supplies in many places, phone and internet connections in Puerto Rico remain shaky months after the hurricane.

Students in third block classes were asked to donate items such as batteries, canned meat and soup, crackers, flash lights, and personal hygiene items. Students were encouraged to understand the scope of the devastation by watching an NBC News video. (https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/puerto-ricans-hard-hit-arecibo-everything-was-lost-n807896)

A contest was announced to help the process along, with the reward of homemade sweets from the Interact Board from the third block class with the most donations. Ultimately, Interact Club sponsor Jimmy Kozcan’s third block won the contest, and received snacks from the Interact board for their good deed for an entire week.

The Rivera-DeJesus family is covering the cost of shipping the supplies to Puerto Rico, and the local official in Arecibo will control the distribution of the donated items.