Office of Multicultural Affairs Encourages Donations for Puerto Rican Hurricane Relief

Angelica Acevedo, Co-Social Media Manager • November 15, 2017

The Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) at St. John’s University is collecting donations to assist Puerto Rico in recovering from Hurricane Maria that swept the island almost two months ago, as stated in their recent Instagram post.

OMA wrote that they are working closely with The Puerto Rican Family Institute, a nonprofit, multi-program health and human services agency with offices in New York City and Puerto Rico.

OMA encourages the St. John’s community to help them send necessary aid to Puerto Rico either monetarily or non-monetarily. Students, faculty and administrators are welcomed to write out checks for the hurricane relief, give cash or donate items such as batteries, solar powered cell phone chargers, fans, radios, generators, non-perishables, baby products and water.

The drop off location for these donations is in OMA’s office in the D’Angelo Center Room 124. The deadline to make any kind of donations is Friday, Dec. 1 at 3 p.m.

WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?!?! Help OMA in sending donations to Puerto Rico! Here is all of the information YOU need to know about how to help in the wake of the recent natural disasters. Feel free to reach out to the people noted in the photo if you have any questions. #puertorico

A post shared by St. John’s OMA (@stjohnsoma) on Nov 6, 2017 at 8:21am PST

Sieta Leon, a junior and vice president of Latin American Student Organization (LASO), feels the University could be drawing more attention to its call for donations.

“I feel like the school is making good initiatives to give aid to Puerto Rico,” Leon said. “Many of these initiatives were fueled by students and they also play a big part in sending relief. Although I feel like there has to be more of a push from the university in the sense that there has been a lack of promotion about it. The only reason I’ve heard about it is from the office of multicultural affairs and also because I am in LASO. But I feel like if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t know about it.”

According to USA Today, as of Nov. 9, 15 percent of the island has no running water and much of it remains without power.

As of Wednesday, Nov. 8, the death toll is at 55, according to the New York Times.

As a result of Puerto Rico’s devastation, many universities across the United States have offered students from the island that were affected by the hurricane with programs to help them pay their tuition. According to Fortune, New York University is offering undergraduate students from Puerto Rico free tuition as well as room and board for the Spring 2018 semester — with applications available as of Nov. 10.

Other universities that have reduced tuition by offering them in-state-tuition are Florida State University, Brown University and Cornell University.

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About the Contributor

Angelica Acevedo, Editor-in-Chief

Angelica Acevedo is a senior journalism major with a minor in history. She has been involved with the Torch since her freshman year, and served as News Editor, Social Media Manager, Opinion Editor and Managing Editor in the past three years. As Editor-in-Chief, she hopes to continue to publish impactful, interesting and important stories that the St. John’s community needs to know. Angelica also hopes to grow the newspaper’s staff and contributors by creating an outreach position that will serve to reach out to students that are interested in practicing journalism and organizing workshops to keep them involved. Moreover, she wants readers to understand the work that journalists do and will advocate for more media literacy during her last year at St. John’s University. Have any questions? Email Angelica at [email protected]