AnnArbor_News

From: Ann Arbor News February 03, 2001
Community Journal Section
By Don Faber

COUPLE ORGANIZING SALVADORAN RELIEF EFFORT

Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers had reason to be concerned when an earthquake tore through El Salvador January 3.
She has relatives living in the capital, San Salvador. Fortunately, they were unharmed and Sylvia is grateful their lives were spared.
But this is her native land, and feelings run deep. It's her belief that not enough is being done for Salvadoran relief.
To that end, she and her husband, Joseph, a boiler engineer at Visteon in Ypsilanti, are organizing a local relief effort.
The couple contacted the SHARE Foundation, a faith-based ecumenical organization in San Francisco, and the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice in Ann Arbor for help with their effort. Both organizations agreed to help.
"We've hit on the idea of a fund-raising dinner, featuring all Salvadoran food," says Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers. "We're aiming for the beginning of March; we're not sure where."
In other words, stay tuned.
Relief agencies put the death toll from the quake and its hundreds of aftershocks at about 700. Property damage totaled $1 billion and 150,000 people have been left homeless, roughly 12 percent of the population.
Nolasco-Rivers' aunt in Ann Arbor is Pilar Celaya, who's well known around here for her Salvadoran dinners. Celaya's experience will be called on for the fund-raising dinner.
Although the United States has sent Air Force transports with blankets and some logistical support to El Salvador, Nolasco-Rivers says not all the aid gets through.
Now 27, Nolasco-Rivers came to this country in 1983 under protection of the Sanctuary Movement. In El Salvador, her family joined a liberation movement against the government oligarchy.
'My uncle, a municipal worker, tried to promote activism," says Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers.
That same year, the government sent soldiers to her grandmother's house in reprisal for the family's anti-government activism.
Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers describes a "massacre, a bloody scene" in which a handful of armed soldiers left three of her relatives dead and two wounded, including an aunt, who was paralyzed.
"We came over the border from Mexico into Arizona," says Nolasco-Rivers, "my mother, father, brother and one sister. We stayed in a sanctuary church." (Her mother, Lilian Nolasco, lives with the Nolasco-Rivers in Ann Arbor.)
The family eventually settled in Eugene, Ore., where they were sponsored by a Quaker Church. They lived there nine years.
Sylvia and Joe, 43, who've only been married for three months, hope to raise $50,000 to send to El Salvador. "We've been told it'll take the country 15 years to recover," says Joseph Nolasco-Rivers.
For now, he says, "we're hoping to raise awareness and make a dent in the problem."
"We can't bring back dead children," adds Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers, "but we can help those who are alive have a more comfortable life."
The couple is working to get "people in the activist community going." Zingerman's, where Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers used to work, has promised a cash contribution. Other contributions have come in from as far away as Midland (Michigan) and Santa Maria, Calif.
SHARE will administer the aid dollars the Nolasco-Rivers raise locally. Persons interested in contributing may do so by making their checks payable to SHARE, marked "El Salvador Earthquake Relief," C/O the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice at 730 Tappan, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.
Or call Sheri Wander at (734) 663-1870 for more information.
Although it has agreed to assist the Nolasco-Rivers' fund raising efforts for El Salvador earthquake relief, the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice is not directly involved in relief efforts for India, which suffered an even-more devastating quake January 26.
"We're not set up to do instant collecting of funds," says Barbara Fuller, co-coordinator. "We're not a fund-raising for disaster relief agency. We're more informational, activist, advocacy-oriented. We do make referrals, however, for example, to Church World Services for people wishing to aid the India victims."
Church World Services is at 28606 Phillips Street, Box 968, Elkhart, IN, 46515. Or call 1-800-297-1516.
The American Red Cross is also collecting earthquake relief funds. Mail checks to American Red Cross, 2729 Packard, Ann Arbor, MI 48108.