LAKE COUNTY — Local efforts to help earthquake victims in Peru are underway with drop-off points in Lakeport and Kelseyville where people can contribute urgently needed items to be sent to Peru.
According to a press release from the General Consulate of Peru in San Francisco (the local embassy that has launched the Northern California campaign to help Peruviano citizens) a magnitude-8 quake destroyed 85 percent of homes in the fishing port of Pisco, 125 miles south east of Lima, on Peru”s central coast Wednesday, Aug. 15. The city of Pisco was leveled by the earthquake that killed at least 540 people, leaving many survivors surrounded by adobe rubble that used to be their homes.
The General Consulate of Peru in San Francisco has assigned Luisa Acosta of Acosta”s Business Center in Kelseyville to help in the Lake County area.
Items needed include tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, and air mattresses. Nonperishable canned food including bottled water is needed, and winter clothes for children and adults.
Peru”s President Alan Garcia told the Associated Press Monday that efforts are steadily underway to reach survivors in remote rural areas, and that approximately 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid had reached the city via navy ships, planes, and helicopters.
Acosta said she first became aware of the situation in Peru and wanted to help when she was invited to a telethon in the Bay Area last week. At the event, she was invited to make a call from the audience.
“They assigned different community members from different areas, so I volunteered to help. I”m very pleased to be a part of the efforts. After the telethon, within four hours we were able to move a lot of people from the Bay Area to bring cash donations,” said Acosta, who added that the Bay Area efforts are being showcased on news stations such as Channel 22 and KDTV Univision on channel 14 in San Francisco. “They came up and interviewed us and did a whole report on it,” said Acosta.
Back home in Lake County, Acosta said things are pretty exciting and she expects donations to start trickling in.
“It”s slowly but surely happening, I”ve already had phone calls from people promising to drop things off this Friday. If I have to extend it to next week also to give people more time I will,” said Acosta.
According to the Consulate, thousands of people are still sleeping outside in makeshift tents, huddling against cold ocean winds that rise up during this time of year, which is the end of the austral winter.
Any of the items can be dropped of at both locations until Saturday or possibly into next week between the hours of 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service in Lakeport, or Acosta”s Business Center located in Kelseyville. For more information, contact Luisa Acosta at (707) 279-9600.
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