UF students are collecting clothes, food and hygiene items for survivors of Ecuador’s earthquake.
About 50 students started collecting Monday after an earthquake hit the coast of Ecuador, causing hundreds of deaths and leaving families without food or shelter, said Gerardo Nunez, a student involved in the collection.
The students partnered with the Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures. Donations can be taken to La Casita on University Avenue or La Salita in the Reitz Union, the UF horticultural sciences postdoctoral student said.
Other collection sites include McCarty Hall B, Matherly Hall, Grinter Hall and the Horticultural Sciences Department at Fifield Hall. The collection will last through Friday.
All donations will be delivered to the Ecuadorian consulate office in Miami on Saturday morning and airlifted to disaster areas in the country, Nunez said.
He said he wanted to help after hearing about the earthquake Saturday night.
“I was scared,” Nunez said. “My parents were at a wedding maybe 30 minutes away from it at the time. They are safe, but not every family was as fortunate.”
Michelle Phillips, a junior economist at UF’s Warrington College of Business Administration’s Public Utility Research Center, was one of the first to donate. She found out about the collection through Facebook.
The Chilean native said she thinks students should empty out their closets and donate anything they can.
“I’ve never lost anything in an earthquake,” the 33-year-old said. “I can’t imagine going through one and losing everything.”
Items Being Collected
Non-perishable foods
Clothing
Personal hygiene items
Bottled water
Battery-powered lamps
and flashlights
Tents
Insect repellent
