Help St Croix Recover From Hurricane Maria

Start: Oct. 8, 2017, 7 p.m.

End: Oct. 8, 2017, 10 p.m.

Please join us this Sunday for a fundraiser benefiting St Croix, US Virgin Islands at El Pinto, Albuquerque, NM, from 1-4 pm. St Croix was devastated by two Category 5 hurricanes in a 12-day period. First, Hurricane Irma traveled north of the island causing catastrophic damage to our sister islands, St Thomas and St John. St Croix was, thankfully, spared the full impact of Irma and became the staging area for aid to the northern Leeward Islands. Many from St. Croix mobilized and loaded their boats with their own supplies and made multiple mercy trips daily with food, water and essential goods for survival.

Twelve days later, Category 5 Hurricane Maria tracked south of the island, it's eye wall parallel to the south shore by a few miles, making landfall on the southwest corner near Frederiksted. The north edge of a hurricane produces the strongest winds and sustained winds of 160 mph with gusts over 200 mph were experienced for over 6 hours. Tropical storm force winds were present much longer. The damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure, the power grid, communications networks and roads, was catastrophic. Power to homes and businesses is not expected to be restored until Christmas at the earliest. Food, water and fuel have been in short supply and lines to obtain them have been long. Things are improving somewhat but your help is needed.

This will an informal community event taking place at El Pinto in their Cantina area. There will be food and drinks available for purchase and live music on stage provided by Steven Katz and, in from Los Angeles, Mikey Wright. Please help support your Caribbean brethren. Crucians are a very tight knit community dedicated to helping each other and now we need your help. Thank you.

All cash donations will be used to purcase essential goods, baby formula, non-perishable food, generator parts, etc, to be loaded on pallets and shipped from Medley, Fla. We're asking that donations made in check form be made out to GHCDS, a K-12 school facing closure as a result of this disaster.