Recent earthquakes hit Balboa, Colombia hard on Aug. 10, when a 7.5 magnitude earthquake devastated the mountain town and sent Rey Sol Coffee Roasters owners into relief mode for family and neighbors there. Johanna Porras-Ramirez and Arley Ramirez started a GoFundMe drive with their daughters Linda and Natalie to gather supplies for residents of Balboa.
Porras-Ramirez estimated that 600 homes have been damaged in Balboa, a town of about 6,000 people. Nearly $3,500 had been raised so far, and household items and tools had already filled a warehouse to overflowing. “It’s so crowded that we have no room to walk,” she said.
Balboa and the Risaralda supply line
The relief effort now depends on moving what has been collected. Rey Sol needs money for a 40-foot container to send all these packages. Trusted shippers the family normally uses for worldwide coffee distribution will take the donations to ports in Colombia, and local truckers will then drive them through rough mountain roads to Balboa.
Porras-Ramirez said the response has to reach beyond the main cities. “The families of Risaralda and Balboa are the reason we carry our story so strongly — the farmers who grow our beans, the neighbors who raised us, the people we represent in every cup we pour here. And because we represent them in our shops every day, we have to stand with them now, when they need us most,” she said.
Johanna Porras-Ramirez in Morristown
The family’s concern is personal as well as logistical. Arley Ramirez is dividing his time between the family home in Balboa and another home in Basking Ridge, while Johanna Porras-Ramirez manages the cafés and stays in touch with relatives and friends in Colombia. The family’s coffee business depends on growers in Balboa and the Risaralda region, where the biggest harvest of the year is rapidly approaching.
Porras-Ramirez said the government is distributing aid to the main cities but not to farmers and people in rural areas. “The people here are very poor and had nothing, and now whatever they did have is gone,” she said. Firemen in Balboa have gone house to house to assess the needs of every stricken family, while the family’s warehouse keeps filling with donations that still need a way to move.
For people sending supplies or money, the immediate need is no longer collection alone; it is transport. The 40-foot container is the next bottleneck, and without it the donations cannot leave the warehouse and reach the mountain roads leading back to Balboa.
