Darien Mobilizes to Help Puerto Rican Community Rebuild

This week marks the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico and left many communities without food, water, or power. One of the most inspiring stories to come out of this disaster is the way the people of the town of Mariana have come together to rebuild their community. They are converting an abandoned schoolhouse into a new community center, El Centro de Imaginación, to support the education of village children and attract visitors for both the arts and business development. The facility will also provide shelter from future storms.

To support this new Imagination Center, First Congregational Church of Darien is sponsoring an evening of Puerto Rican music and food on September 28, from 7:30-9:30 pm.

The benefit will celebrate Puerto Rican culture, with music provided by the Norwalk-based Latin Music band “Park City” and Puerto Rican food donated by the New Haven-based restaurant La Esquina Del Mofongo. To purchase tickets or make a contribution, visit https://www.fcc4puertorico.org/.

Rev. Dale Rosenberger, senior pastor at FCC, commented: “Our faith compels us to serve our neighbors, whether they are in the next town, in a different part of the country or around the world. We want the people of Puerto Rico, who have still not recovered from the devastation of Hurricane Maria, to know they are not forgotten. We are particularly gratified to support Mariana, which has shown resilience and self-motivation in the face of tremendous challenges.”

Mariana is a small mountain village of 3,300 clinging to the hills high above the city of Humacao at the far eastern end of Puerto Rico, the very place where Hurricane Maria made landfall on September 20, 2017.

When the hurricane passed and it became clear that neither FEMA nor the local government would be able to provide the assistance the community needed, two young local residents, Luis Rodriguez Sanchez and Christine Nieves, decided to take matters into their own hands.

With a vision of self-sufficiency, Luis and Christine created Proyecto Apoyo Mutuo Mariana (Mutual Aid Project), which initially organized free meals out of Mariana’s damaged community center kitchen. They mobilized the community to cook for hundreds of people a day, providing fresh local meals of rice, pork and beans, rather than the MREs and tropical-flavored skittles that FEMA and the military could offer . Then they added a weekly health clinic, provided potable water, delivered meals to the elderly, and began to offer classes in chess and bomba dance for children who had no schools to attend. They organized the community to install solar panels on the roof, providing the only electricity and Wi-Fi available to many in the neighborhood.

Proyecto Apoyo Mutuo Mariana is not only giving away free food, but also giving people, no matter their age, the opportunity to contribute whatever they can so they can be part of their own solution. Rather than sitting back and depending on the government to fix their problems, they took responsibility for their own community.

Today the project has transitioned from emergency disaster relief to longer-term programs to rebuild the community and establish self-sufficiency. Their main focus is to help build The Imagination Center, or El Centro de Imaginación, for which First Congregational Church is raising money.