Balboa, Colombia, was hit hard on Aug. 10 when a 7.5 magnitude earthquake devastated the rural town and left about 600 homes damaged. For Johanna Porras-Ramirez, the quake turned into a family emergency, a business response and a race to get help to neighbors who have little left.
Porras-Ramirez and Arley Ramirez, working with their daughters Linda and Natalie, started a GoFundMe drive to help the hometown they still call home. Nearly $3,500 has been raised so far, and donated household items and tools have already filled a warehouse to overflowing, she said. The family now needs money for a 40-foot container to move the packages out, because the goods cannot help anyone while they sit in storage.
The need is sharpened by where the damage landed. Balboa has a population of 6,000, and Porras-Ramirez said the people most exposed to the quake were farmers and rural residents, not the city centers where government aid is more likely to arrive. Firemen in Balboa have gone house to house to assess the needs of every stricken family, a task that underscores how many homes were affected and how slowly recovery can move once roads, homes and supply lines are disrupted.
That is why the family’s effort has become more than a fundraiser. Rey Sol Coffee Roasters, with stores in Morristown and Ridgewood, depends on growers in Balboa and has cultivated ties there for six generations across approximately 500 acres of farmland. Porras-Ramirez said the business has trusted shippers ready to move the relief to ports in Colombia, with local truckers then taking it over rough mountain roads to Balboa, but she said the shipping costs remain the missing piece. She also said the family’s work carries a personal urgency because the same community that grows the beans is now asking for help.
At the same time, the coffee business is trying to keep moving toward its biggest season of the year. A special crop timed for Thanksgiving is in the works, and Porras-Ramirez said the operation still has to keep roasting while organizing relief from a warehouse that is already packed. That leaves the family in the middle of two timelines at once: rebuilding a damaged hometown and figuring out how to pay to get aid where it is needed most.
Porras-Ramirez did not frame the effort as charity so much as repayment. “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. For now, the unanswered question is not whether help exists, but whether enough money will come in to move it before the next urgent need does.
