CLEVELAND, Ohio — 16-year-old Radames Martinez was in Puerto Rico visiting family when the first earthquake struck Puerto Rico in late December.
- Students at Lincoln West High School started a donation drive to help victims coming to Ohio from devastated Puerto Rico
- Lincoln West has many students with family members in Puerto Rico
- Donations are still being accepted and can be made at the school
“It felt like it was turbulence on an airplane, so I didn’t panic, but my dad, everybody in the house, everybody in the neighborhood was panicking, screaming, crying like nothing was falling, but they were just crying because it was one right after the other, like it was not stopping,” Martinez said.
Martinez says he and other families were sleeping outside of their homes just to be safe.
“After we saw destruction going on in many houses, we were scared about our own safety in the house because one, we couldn’t sleep nor be normal in a house that was shaking rapidly and two, it was just a matter of safety to sleep outside because the most that can fall outside are trees, but trees were hard to fall because of the earthquakes, it was just mostly the house we were scared of,” said Martinez.
Martinez attends Lincoln West High School in Cleveland, were many students have family members on the island.
To help Puerto Ricans evacuate the island, the students started a donation project to help those families in need.
“But when they come here, they don’t bring anything with them, so here in our school, we took the initiative to start a project where we are collecting donations from the community for these families that are coming from Puerto Rico. So, we pick up clothes, we wash them here, we dry them, we fold them, we categorize them and when families get here they can come here and pick up what they need,” said Rosa Cruz, teacher.
Puerto Rico continues to experience tremors, so Martinez says some of his family members who are still there plan to leave.
Right now, I got my family members coming to Cleveland this weekend because of how scared they are,” said Martinez.
