In January 2018, Camille Collazo and her team at Visit Rico organized donations to projects in Puerto Rico and a spectacular event help to several farms in Puerto Rico. Teams of 30 people from City Winery descended on these places for a day, along with founder Michael Dorf, and helped with debris removal from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Las Casas was chosen as a site to build a stage to have a gourmet dining and music experience. We milled our own fallen pine, and in one day a stage was built. The day was an energetic movement that words cannot describe, bringing much needed help to devastated areas at the Las Casas homestead.
The Visit Rico initiative received support from the Foundation for Puerto Rico, the Segarra Boerman Foundation, the non-profit organization Slow Food, PRxPR and private entities such as Para La Naturaleza and Microjuris. There were fundraisers with Cape Cod Farm, Gramercy Tavern with Chef Juan José, El Boricuá Fund in Minnesota and Crazy Legs from Rock Steady for Life. In addition, Farmer’s Markets outside of Puerto Rico expressed their solidarity with the cause.
Institute of Ecotechnics directors, Marie Harding & Freddy Dempster visited and were a huge help in all areas. Freddy set-up an LED light-system in all the communal areas of the homestead, and life has been upgraded immensely. Las Casas de la Selva, in the mountains will not get electricity for many more months. (Update: It was 9 months of no electricity).
Chef Natalia Vallejo (image above by Xavier Garcia), and her team, cooked up a storm in our kitchen, and with the LED lights in the dining room, the whole house staged the catering effort to feed over 200 people at night, with a three course meal.
Here’s Michael Dorf talking about his mission to Puerto Rico: https://youtu.be/sC4d6XYyeIg Thank you!!
The City Winery event, the story, and great footage of Las Casas de la Selva a few months after Hurricane Maria: https://youtu.be/XbIN3ShGa5A
And a great write-up:
https://www.foodandwine.com/travel/puerto-rico-relief-city-winery-dinner-concert
Thank you to all the volunteers who really worked hard, in the pouring rain, to set-up the stage area and footings, including: 3t, Andrés, Andrés Rúa Senior, Ramon Rúa, Axel Rúa, Kai Griebenow, Vanessa Acevedo, and Juanita Gonzalez.
Images: 3t Vakil.
Group photo by Marie Harding.
