Hurricane Fiona Relief Fund

Thank you—we cannot express enough gratitude for your generous support of the Hurricane Fiona Relief Fund. Your donation has played a critical role in assisting GlobalGiving’s vetted nonprofit partners on the front lines of relief and recovery efforts. 

I recently returned to Puerto Rico to visit family members and friends. While there, I also had the opportunity to meet in person with several of GlobalGiving’s key partners driving Hurricane Fiona response across the island. The impact they are having in the communities they serve is profound and an immense testament to community-led disaster relief and recovery.

I left the visits inspired and energized. A common thread emerged from the visits: local organizations deserve more funding and more visibility because they are closest to the solutions for the communities they serve. These organizations have been working tirelessly since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017. They navigated the impacts of the earthquakes in Puerto Rico in 2020. They confronted the COVID-19 pandemic. And now, they are leading in the face of the latest blows from Hurricane Fiona in September 2022. This is all on top of dealing with the colonial realities and other structural inequities that local communities in Puerto Rico face daily.

Here is a short description of some of the critical work you’ve supported, from three of the partners I had the chance to visit:

• La Maraña is a grassroots, women-led organization that was formed in response to the destruction Hurricane Maria brought to Puerto Rico in 2017. Its Food Sovereignty Fund has been a critical vehicle to get flexible support into the hands of local farmers and fishers in the areas most affected by Hurricane Fiona. To date, the fund has supported more than 11 farms and two different fishing communities across the island. You can watch this short video to learn more about their work.

• Taller Salud is a community-based feminist organization founded 40 years ago in Puerto Rico. Leveraging what it has learned in responding to multiple disasters and crises over the years, the organization is setting up three new resilience centers. The centers will be in communities on the island that are most prone to disaster risks to improve disaster preparedness.
  
  
• Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, one of the leading legal empowerment organizations in Puerto Rico, is ensuring that every person impacted by Hurricane Fiona has access to justice, the right to housing, and the fair recovery of their communities. The organization uses flexible support from GlobalGiving to invest in its capacity to continue serving more clients affected by Hurricane Fiona. Its team will focus on areas that have been neglected by government programs while also preparing for this year’s hurricane season.

Your support of the GlobalGiving Hurricane Fiona Relief Fund means local nonprofits are getting the critical resources they need to help their community rebuild and thrive. Here is what Cynthia, the Executive Director of La Maraña, shared with us:

“GlobalGiving's trust, care, and flexibility have helped us move resources quicker and more efficiently to communities. It's rare to find [partners] who truly understand the needs and challenges of local organizations, but GlobalGiving is one of them.”

Thank you for your donation and your solidarity that enables GlobalGiving to be a trusted partner to local nonprofits in disaster-affected communities. You can find a full list of nonprofits that have received additional grants from the Hurricane Fiona Relief Fund since our last update at the end of this report.

With gratitude, 

Victoria + the GlobalGiving Team 

Nonprofit Partners Receiving Emergency Grants

• Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico

• Banco de Alimentos Arquidiocesis de Santo Domingo

• Craft Emergency Relief Fund

• David McAntony Gibson Foundation

• Dominican Republic Education And Mentoring (DREAM) Project

• Filantropia Puerto Rico

• Secours Catholique - Caritas France

• La Fondita de Jesús

• La Maraña

• Parceleras Afrocaribeñas por la Transformación Barrial

• Programa de Educación Comunal de Entrega y Servicio (P.E.C.E.S.)

• Puerto Rico Community Foundation

• Taller Salud

Thank you for your generous donation to GlobalGiving’s Hurricane Fiona Relief Fund. Within 10 days of Hurricane Fiona leaving a path of destruction in the Caribbean, our team awarded emergency grants to six vetted nonprofit partners responding to the storm’s catastrophic impacts in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Last week, GlobalGiving made a second round of emergency grants to five additional vetted nonprofit partners based in Puerto Rico.

Tapping into our deep relationships in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean built during our multi-year response to Hurricane Maria in 2017, GlobalGiving’s Disaster Response Team has been in close contact with our trusted partners based in communities severely affected by Hurricane Fiona. Here is a short description of some of the critical work you’ve supported through your generosity: 

• Banco de Alimentos República Dominicana is working overtime to manage multiple donation collection and distribution centers to get food, medicines, clothing, and construction materials to storm-affected families in need across the Dominican Republic’s eastern provinces. As the national food bank, the organization is working closely with its network of local partners in all affected areas.
  
  
• La Maraña is a grassroots, women-led organization that was formed in response to the destruction Hurricane Maria brought in 2017. Following the devastation Hurricane Fiona caused, the organization is currently focused on food security, sovereignty, and production. Making use of its extensive experience responding to Hurricane Maria, the organization activated its Food Sovereignty Fund to provide immediate and long-term cash assistance to local farmers and fishers who have seen their livelihoods devastated by the storm.

• Taller Salud is a community-based feminist organization founded 40 years ago and based in Loíza, Puerto Rico. It has been running multiple community kitchens to feed its neighbors and community. The organization is also distributing emergency supplies and assistance to flood-affected communities, including elderly people confined to their homes due to mobility issues.

• Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, one of the leading legal empowerment organizations in Puerto Rico, is ensuring that every person impacted by Hurricane Fiona has access to justice, the right to housing, and the fair recovery of their communities. For example, the organization has activated a network of more than 140 pro-bono legal staff and volunteers to provide hands-on guidance to affected families and communities, so they are able to get federal and local aid.

• Apoyo a Padres de Niños con Impedimentos (APNI) exists to provide holistic support to parents and families of children and young people with disabilities across Puerto Rico. In response to Hurricane Fiona, the organization is quickly getting emergency supplies to families in its network. This includes installing solar power systems on the homes of families that need reliable power for assistive and mobility technologies for their children.

• Red por los Derechos de la Niñez y la Juventud de Puerto Rico works across Puerto Rico to protect children in vulnerable living situations, especially in contexts of violence. With deep connections to children’s shelters throughout the island, the organization is providing reliable meals, counseling and other emotional support services, crisis hotlines for youth experiencing homelessness, and emergency shelters.

Your support of the GlobalGiving Hurricane Fiona Relief Fund powers community-led responses, and it means these locally based organizations get the critical resources they need to help their community rebuild. 

The need remains enormous for impacted communities across the Caribbean. In the months ahead, we will share another update with you via email as our partners continue to lead the way in advancing community-led disaster relief and recovery. You can find a full list of nonprofits that have received grants from the Hurricane Fiona Relief Fund at the end of this report.

Our partners will remain hard at work to help their communities—and so will we. Thank you again for your support.

With immense gratitude, 

Chase + the GlobalGiving team

Nonprofit Partners Receiving Emergency Grants

• Apoyo a Padres de Niños con Impedimentos (APNI)

• Asociación de Comunidades Unidas Tomando Acción Solidaria (ACUTAS)

• Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico

• Banco de Alimentos República Dominicana

• La Fondita de Jesús

• La Maraña

• Programa de Educación Comunal de Entrega y Servicio (P.E.C.E.S.)

• Puerto Rico Community Foundation

• Red por los Derechos de la Niñez y la Juventud de Puerto Rico

• Taller Salud

• Y No Había Luz