Third-year College student Camila Figueroa was laying out in the backyard over winter break when she saw her house start to shake.
She was at home in El Salvador when a massive earthquake, which registered 7.6 on the Richter scale, shook the Central American nation.
"I thought my house was going to fall down," she said. "I saw everything in my house breaking."
The chair she was sitting on began bouncing up and down because the shaking was so violent.
"It was really terrifying," she added.
Luckily, Figueroa's family was not hurt, and the damage to her house was minimal compared to the 196,553 homes that were either partially or fully destroyed.
As the people of El Salvador begin the long process of rebuilding their towns and villages from the massive earthquake, a group of University students have decided to join the widespread efforts to help them reshape their shattered lives.
A team of concerned students, joined by the Office of the Dean of Students and La Alianza, a coalition of student leaders of University Latino and Latin- American organizations, is launching the El Salvador Earthquake Aid Campaign Feb. 1. The group plans to have a month-long fundraising drive through February to send aid to El Salvador.
The Salvadorians are "fellow human beings in a desperate situation who are depending on those who have the extra money and time to help them," said Adriana Montalvo, a second-year Law student and Salvadorian who will help lead the campaign at the Law School.
Asst. Dean of Students Pablo J. Davis works closely with the aid campaign and said they have not nailed down exactly where they will send the money they raise for the victims, but a good possibility is the Red Cross.
"We're very serious about the money getting where it is most needed," Davis said.
The campaign has set up an account with the U.Va. Fund at Alumni Hall to deposit donations.
Second-year Darden student Joaquin Gutierrez is part of the group organizing the relief fund. He said that the idea to organize earthquake aid emerged when he and some other Salvadorians began talking amongst themselves about the horrors of the earthquake and the destruction that had occurred in their native land.
"We realized that we had to do something about it," Gutierrez said.
He said about 60 people attended the group's interest meeting Tuesday.
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