Venezuelan community groups and businesses in North Texas continue to send aid to their home country after last week's deadly earthquakes. Two back-to-back quakes killed an estimated 1,500 people and injured thousands of others, with many still trapped or unaccounted for.
Maria Fernanda Freites, known as "Beba" to her friends, didn't waste time in organizing efforts to send help home.
She and a group of women got together to cook food such as sopa de pollo and chuletas de puerco, which they're giving out in exchange for donations — like non-perishable foods, medical supplies, clothes and shoes, and personal hygiene products.
"All the people that have helped us have shared what they have in their heart," Freites said, as she chopped vegetables in her kitchen. "We've sent the donations to Venezuela and we have people in there helping us distribute food, and get water and medical supplies into peoples' hands and hospitals."
Freites told KERA in Spanish that she has paused her work as the owner of a nail salon to focus on these efforts. She and her friends have been working almost nonstop since news of the earthquakes.
She said she will send anything she's able to and is planning to continue to help as much as she can for as long as she can. Local delivery businesses are collaborating to help get the supplies there faster via plane, she said.
Freites, who came to the U.S. three years ago, is from Caracas, near where the earthquakes struck. She said while her family is accounted for, some family members of her friends and clients remain missing.
"There's a lot of people that are lost. We are working to help save everyone that we can," she said. "We've been in agony for the last 72 hours."
Milagros Coromoto Martinez Oropeza is from the state of Apure, near the northern part of Venezuela. She stopped at Freites' home to find comfort around friends.
"I'm devastated. My heart and soul are in pieces," she told KERA in Spanish. "I have my family on my mother's side who were affected. My uncle died and his sons are missing. They still haven't given us any news. This is devastating."
Oropeza, who has been in the U.S. since 2018, said it's Venezuelan people throughout the world who are making efforts to help people affected by the earthquakes — not the government, which was under the rule of Nicolas Maduro until the U.S. topped him earlier this year.
"Sometimes I cry and it gives me agony that we Venezuelans don't deserve this," she said. "We're coming out of a dictatorship, and just when we think we are getting on our feet, something devastating happens."
Freites said their efforts were the least they could do in this time of uncertainty and despair.
"We are all doing this to help our country, our people," she said. "Because Venezuela is not millions of people. We are one person, and we will always be there for one another."
Copyright 2026 KERA News
