03/18/2018
Meet Zoraida and Janice sadly this family lost more than just their home and all of their belongings. In August Zoraidas daughter Joselyn lost her husband on September 20th Zoraida and her husband Andres lost their home and all of their belongings when hurricane Maria ripped through the island of Vieques. In October Andres wasn't feeling well. He went to the hospital numerous times and they kept sending him home telling him that he had indigestion. Zoraida was not convinced and wanted to bring Andres to the mainland to be seen at a different hospital, however Andres insisted that he stay at their house because he did not want to miss the FEMA inspector. For those of you who don't know on the island of Vieques there was no communication to the outside world except by satellite phones for 2 months after Maria and then slowly phone service began to come back but not strong until just a few weeks ago. So Andres and everyone else had no idea when FEMA would arrive because nobody could communicate. After almost 2 months of waiting he finally agreed to go to the mainland hospital only if his daughter Janice would come to the hospital to wait for the FEMA inspector. Janice traveled from her home on Culebra to spend the day at her parents house while they went to the hospital on the mainland. Once at the hospital Zoraida began to relax she felt that they Andres was in good hands and they were going to be able to help him. Sadly that was not the case. Andres passed away just 4 hours after arriving to the hospital. Shortly after the death of her husband Zoraida found out that the cancer that she was battling was back. She has not scheduled her chemo treatments yet, ,because she has been living in the one room of her husbands workshop underneath their home. She finally moved out 2 weeks ago because the tarp that was over her bed to catch the water from the leaking ceiling had torn and she could not go on living like that. She is staying with a friend on the mainland but desperately wants to get back to her home. Hope Builders will be helping Zoraida rebuild her home. We hope to start construction in 2 to 3 weeks, but we are still short on funds to buy materials and hire help. Although we have mostly volunteers working we do hire at least 1 local for every job we do because our goal is to spur the Vieques community while we rebuild. If you want to help Zoraida get back into her home please consider donating you can go to the link below to donate and please put in your comments Hope for Zoraida so we can make sure the money you donate goes directly to the rebuild of her home. Thank you so much for taking the time to read about Zoraida Your generous support is appreciated
www.youcaring.com/viequeshopeandhomes
Hope Builders
