Help our friends in Chile….San Juan Island helping San Juan Bautista

San Juan Bautista, before the earthquake....

Juan & Heidi Lopez and friends are pulling together a dinner to give folks a chance to help people in Chile…here’s the story:

CHILEAN TSUNAMI RELIEF DINNER: May 6th
While the news of the earthquake that recently destroyed life, homes and buildings in Chile is losing significance, Chileans living on San Juan Island continue to be impacted by the call for help. The horrific tsunami that followed the earthquake virtually wiped out hundreds of small fishing villages and towns along 300 miles of Chilean coast. In a country that experiences a massive earthquake every 7-10 years, costal people learn to run to the hills as soon tremors grow strong.

This painful lesson helped reduce the loss of life, particularly considering the huge power of a wave that in some places reached up to 30 feet high, and, that moving at 36 feet per second demolished more than one hundred small villages.

Within hours Chileans of all social levels, as well as the industry, banks, and commerce responded with donations of over 60 million dollars that were soon matched by the government. However, the price of the destruction amount to several billion dollars, and those of us living on the San Juan want to alert your attention to the need for help.

One of the most devastated towns in Chile was San Juan Bautista. It is located in Cumberland Bay on the north coast of the Robinson Crusoe Island which together with three other small island form the Juan Fernandez archipelago. This village of 600 plus inhabitants lives from fishing the large pacific lobster. All but sixteen of them ran to safety.

However, their town was virtually wiped out by the tsunami. Nothing was left. Homes, school, police station, post office, medical clinic, as well as roads, communications, power, and water were all gone. They still need urgent help. The Spanish Cooks Union donated funding to send a prefabricated building to house the school of San Juan Bautista, but there is still much to do. We are negotiating with the University Hospital in Seattle to send minor supplies and used surgical equipment to restock their small rural clinic, but the clinic building needs to be urgently reconstructed before the southern winter kicks in.

We are planning to get you, the San Juan families to help the other Juan, the San Juan Bautista families. Roche Harbor Resort has generously made available their Pavilion to hold a dinner on Thursday May 6th at 6pm to collect funds to repair the clinic of San Juan Bautista. Local Chileans will prepare a delicious typical Chilean dinner for you, including salads, empanadas, and “pastel de choclo”. Top it off with outstanding desserts donated by local Friday Harbor chefs that will be auctioned at the end. Please join us to let our northern San Juan town help the south Cumberland’s Juan Bautista families rebuild their rural clinic.

Tickets can be purchased in advance at Griffin Bay Bookstore for 25 dollars or 30 dollars at the door. Questions/Donations please contact Lumi Verdugo (360 472 0955c, 360 378 6422h) or Juan Lopez (360 378 3127).

San Juan Bautista, afterwards....

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