Packages For Puerto Rico Aims To Help People In Need

Weeks after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, many residents of the island, especially those in isolated villages and towns, are still going without the most basic everyday essentials.

Amber Longhitano, a former Bristol Township council person, has family on the island in the mountain town of Manati. Knowing that her family members were going without the most basic of necessities set off her humanitarian side. Longhitano immediately began working to organize Packages for Puerto Rico, an initiative were the public can send care packages to people in specific towns. The people in those towns are the ambassadors who then divide the goods to people in the villages in need.

“I have a lot of faith in the people in our community and their willingness to jump in and make a difference,” Longhitano said. So far, two towns in Puerto Rico have ambassadors. Comerio and Manati are both accepting packages filled with food, water, bug spray and other necessities.

“We should be able to completely inundate these towns with packages,” Longhitano said.

As soon as the post office resumed service to the island, Longhitano was working to get the project moving. Since the storm, she has sent one large package down, with plans to send more in the coming days.

“We thought that the best way to bypass the red tape and get these places the supplies they need was to directly send them the supplies,” Longhitano explained. “I just think that this is a better way of approaching this.”

Most of the island of 3 million residents, especially remote areas like Manati and Comerio, were still without running water and electricity earlier this week. Internet access is spotty in these places too. Government officials said Tuesday that 24 percent of the island had power by Tuesday.

According to FEMA, more than 20,000 federal civilian personnel and military service members are deployed to the region to assist.

“I cannot even fathom what it would be like to get up every day and not have water or food,” Longhitano said.

To get the word out, the realtor and former elected official has used social media.

Anyone with family in Puerto Rico is welcome to get in touch with Longhitano and set up their family’s address as being an ambassador of their town. Longhitano can be reached on Facebook, via email at amberlonghitano@yahoo.com, or through text message at 267-266-6124.

The current addresses are: Candida Perales Cortes, P.O. Box 3042, Manati, PR 00674, and Carmen Celia Ortiz, P.O. Box 71 Comerio, Puerto Rico, 00782.