Waterbury Hospital is sending 1,000 pounds of medical supplies and medicine to Puerto Rico to help people affected by Hurricane Maria.
Employees packed supplies on Thursday, loaded them into a truck on Friday and shipped them down to Newark Airport. A United Airlines flight is scheduled to fly the supplies to the island on Saturday.
Yarixa Lopez, who works as an administrative assistant at Waterbury Hospital, brought the idea to the hospital administration to help the island she grew up in and still has family in.
She was most recently there during Hurricane Irma and is getting regular updates from her family who endured Hurricane Maria.
“There’s tons of flooding, everybody is low on water, gas, food. It’s pretty horrible,” Lopez said.
She worked with the Waterbury Hispanic Coalition, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal’s office and Dr. Cesar Sierra, from Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Once the supplies arrive in Puerto Rico they will be transported to the Department of Health, then distributed to area hospitals.
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“I think it’s phenomenal. This will help so many people in the country,” said Gisele Booker, the vice president of the Hispanic Coalition.
