Sending a Rainbow of Relief After the Floods

As central Mexico struggles to recover from devastating floods and landslides, relief efforts are continuing in Southern California--some initiated and supported by those with roots in the stricken states.

“The answer to why we help is easy,” said 75-year-old Federico Garcia of Hawthorne, who has family in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. “First of all, we are human beings. Second, whenever possible we try to help our brethren, Mexicans in general and Oaxacans in particular.”

Garcia and some of his neighbors recently brought clothes, medicine and other items to a Koreatown storefront where the group Centro Binacional Para el Desarrollo Indigena Oaxaqueno is collecting aid. Centro Binacional is one of a handful of Los Angeles-area organizations that have launched relief efforts, particularly trying to raise money, which can be sent to troubled areas more easily than clothes and medicine.

Other drives have been organized by El Comite de Beneficencia Mexicana Inc., a group of activists and musicians from Orange County that has dubbed its effort Ayuda 2000; Operation USA; and El Comite Mexicano Civico Patriotico, which is planning a telethon, Unidos Por Mexico.

“We calculate the rebuilding process will be over many days, months,” said Rodrigo Ruiz, regional coordinator of Centro Binacional. “We are going to raise things over a long time.”

The lingering rains that began in early October have caused mudslides and widespread flooding in nine states, including Tabasco, Veracruz, Hidalgo and Puebla. As many as 300 people have been killed and more than 200,000 driven from their homes. Others are stranded in remote villages.

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo initially said the country had sufficient means to help its people and would not accept foreign aid. But last week he said such aid would be welcomed.

“What he meant is that the problem with the communities is not that they don’t have aid,” said Alberto Aviles, press attache for the Mexican Consulate in L.A. “[The government] doesn’t have the means to get it there quickly.”

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L.A. organizers emphasize that their efforts are independent of the Mexican government and that they will work directly with contacts in the affected areas, such as reputable nonprofit organizations. They want to allay concerns that their efforts might end in the same way as some other relief efforts for Latin American disaster victims.

For example, after Hurricane Mitch last year, tons of relief items gathered by the Nicaraguan Consulate’s office in L.A. sat here for months and then were stalled in a Nicaraguan port while people just an hour’s drive away went without food and warm clothes.

“We were motivated by outrage seeing reports that some of the aid is being mishandled by official entities,” said Cesar Arredondo, of Ayuda 2000, who is also helping organize a benefit rock en espanol concert partly through his Santa Ana-based company, Rocketeria.com.

He said recent Spanish-language news reports have said Mexican soldiers are selling flood relief aid to victims rather than distributing it freely. Aviles said the consulate’s office had no knowledge of such problems.

The Mexican consulate is referring relief offers to independent organizations, particularly El Comite de Beneficencia.

Donations of money are preferable to food, medicine and clothes, said Kathy Schutzer, special projects coordinator for Operation USA--an organization that routinely provides emergency services to disaster victims around the world--because it can be mailed directly or deposited in special accounts.

“While I understand the frustration of the person who called me on the phone [offering food], they want to help and their heart is in the right place,” she said. “But the public needs to know the best way they can help.”

Miscellaneous items are subject to lengthy bureaucratic delays at the border and are expensive to ship and to sort once they arrive, Schutzer said. Operation USA does collect clothes, medicine and other items but prefers them in bulk--such as large donations from companies--to ease transportation and distribution.

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Like Operation USA, which monitors the aid it raises until it reaches disaster victims, other L.A. aid groups say they are working or plan to work with volunteers in Mexico rather than with government agencies. Centro Binacional, for example, has a counterpart in Oaxaca to whose members it will deliver money and items raised here.

El Comite Civico will elect local representatives in L.A. to deliver money to counterparts in each of the affected states. Ayuda 2000 is asking that funds be sent directly to the accounts of two nonprofits operating in Guatemala and Mexico.

“People must still trust relief efforts,” Arredondo said. “We just want to make sure they are done through reputable organizations.”

Jose Cardenas can be reached by e-mail at jose.cardenas@latimes.com.

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How to Contribute

Comite de Beneficencia Mexicana. Type of aid: money, food, clothing, medicine.

2900 Calle Pedro Infante

Los Angeles, CA 90063

(323) 264-1428

Donations in the organization’s name may be sent to the address above or deposited at any Wells Fargo Bank, account number 001113122000247-0372615567.

Centro Binacional Para el Desarrollo Indigena Oaxaqueno. Type of aid: money, medicine, food, clothes.

3417 W. 8th St.

Los Angeles, CA 90005

Donations in the organization’s name may be sent to the address above or to Community Credit Union, P.O. Box 1877, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1877, account number 24696CE-2.

A fund-raising dance is scheduled Oct. 30, 6 p.m., at 1610 W. 7th St., Los Angeles. $10 donation.

Operation USA. Type of aid: money, bulk food, medicine and clothes.

8320 Melrose Ave., Suite 200

Los Angeles, CA 90069

(323) 658-8876 or (800) 678-7255

Donations can be sent to address above, made over the phone or sent to https://www.opusa.org.

Ayuda 2000/Aid 2000. Type of aid: money.

Group can be reached at (714) 953-7502.

Checks and money orders may be sent to:

Fundacion Rigoberta Menchu Tum

P.O. Box 02-5339

Miami, FL 33102-5339

or

Fideicomiso Para La Salud de los Ninos Indigenas de Mexico, A.C.

California Commerce Bank

5438 E. Whittier Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA, 90022

Account number is 59 43855701.

Ayuda 2000 is planning a benefit concert with local rock en espanol bands. A venue has not been chosen.

El Comite Mexicano Civico Patriotico. Type of aid: money.

A telethon, Unidos Por Mexico, will be held from noon to 6 p.m. Oct. 31 at Belvedere Park, Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard and North Mednik Avenue, East L.A. It will be broadcast on KLAX-FM (97.9) and KVEA-TV and feature entertainers such as Nydia Rojas, Lupita Castro, Gerardito Fernandez and Galaxy team member Carlos Hermosillo.