While balancing classes at Hult International Business School in Cambridge and work at her family’s coffee company, Natalie Ramirez has spent the past month organizing earthquake relief efforts for her family’s hometown in Colombia.
“One of my biggest passions as a person is community and where I come from,” said Ramirez, 20, a junior at Hult whose family is originally from Balboa, Colombia, where an Aug. 10 earthquake damaged more than 600 homes. She said the disaster left many residents without essential supplies such as food, water and shelter.
“They have been our family,” Ramirez said. “They have been our friends. These are the people that were my babysitters and [helped raise me]. And they’re hurting.”
After the earthquake, Ramirez said she and her family, who now live in New Jersey, began organizing aid through their coffee company, Rey Sol Coffee Roasters, which has shops in Ridgewood and Morristown, N.J.
Ramirez has worked with her mother and sister to collect and send supplies to Balboa. Her mother in New Jersey has been receiving in-person donated supplies like medicine, food and materials for shelter. The coffee company has hosted events and worked with collaborators to spread the word.
Ramirez’s mother then packages the supplies to be sent to Balboa, where her sister helps distribute with local emergency responders. So far, they have sent about 1,700 pounds of supplies to Balboa, Ramirez said.
Ramirez has handled much of the financial and administrative work, while her mother prepares the next shipment, a 20-foot container of supplies. To help raise money for shipping and distributing additional supplies, Ramirez launched a GoFundMe campaign with a $20,000 fundraising goal. It has raised more than $3,600 since Aug 11.
Her sister, Linda Rivera, 30, who is in Balboa, described Ramirez as “intelligent, motivated, and dedicated” in helping a recovery that she said would take years. “I love being able to work with Natalie,” Rivera said. “She has been able to bring up awareness and connect us with people that are willing to help us on bigger scales.”
The relief effort has allowed Ramirez to connect her life in Cambridge with the community her family is from.
Ramirez said Rey Sol Coffee harvests coffee beans in Balboa, and her family’s roots in Colombia go back six generations. Colombian coffee farmers’ work ethic has inspired her dedication to the relief effort, she said. “When those are the people that taught us how to work here, we must highlight them through everything that we do,” Ramirez said. “Especially when they need help, we have to show up.”
Even seemingly small donations have made an impact. Ramirez was told students in Balboa cried with joy over a soccer ball sent to their school.
“They have to walk over places that they grew up around. The environment is completely different,” Ramirez said of the damage in Balboa. “Meanwhile, ours here [in Cambridge] stays the complete same, so … I got inspired because it’s the least we can do.”
Balancing her workload has been “extremely difficult,” Ramirez said, but she views supporting her community as a priority.
“I have had a huge growth mindset within this experience,” Ramirez said. “I just have to show myself as a person first because the work will show itself.”
Ramirez’s mother, Johanna Porras-Ramirez, co-owner of Rey Sol Coffee Roasters, said helping the Balboa community has long been important to their family, which has donated toys and supplies during the holidays. She said she was very proud of her daughter. “Some kids her age are focusing on something different, but the job that she has been doing is amazing,” Porras-Ramirez said.
This story is part of a partnership between Cambridge Day and the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom program.
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