MISSION
Teens4PR created a platform to help young people fundraise for hurricane relief and reconstruction in Puerto Rico, which was devastated by two category 4-5 hurricanes, including Hurricane Maria, in September 2017. Teens4PR also seeks to promote love, solidarity and commitment towards Puerto Rico and its people, by bringing second generation Puerto Rican youth living on the mainland United States closer to their Puerto Rican roots, and engaging them in the ecological and economic rebirth of the islands Puerto Rico. Besides the work involving our young volunteers, our organization helps other organizations and educational institutions plan solidarity trips to Puerto Rico, in an effort to increase awareness and knowledge about Puerto Rico and its people.
Young people who join Teens4PR will receive:
tools to help them raise funds in their respective schools and communities,
access to a centralized effort that will ensure that the funds that they raise have a greater impact, and
the opportunity to do volunteer and internship work in future visits to Puerto Rico.
The funds raised will help local organizations that serve disadvantaged communities and the environment across Puerto Rico, including Vieques and Culebra. Teens4PR will also partner with these and other organizations to connect our young volunteers with service-based opportunities and internships, so they can make real change, help Puerto Rico in this time of need, and, in the case of second generation Puerto Ricans, promote love, solidarity and commitment towards Puerto Rico.
Some of the fondest memories and experiences that many of our young volunteers have had in their young lives come from visits to their beloved families in Puerto Rico. They have received much love from their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, their cousins and people all over Puerto Rico. They have basked in the beauty of its land. Puerto Rico has also touched the hearts of Teens4PR volunteers who are not of Puerto Rican descent. Puerto Rico needs help now! And one is never too young to return some of what one has been so blessed to receive.
01/12/2020 EARTHQUAKES UPDATE: A new tragedy is unfolding in Puerto Rico as hundreds of earthquakes, both, great and small, continue to rock the island. Thousands of our fellow American citizens in Puerto Rico have had to seek refuge outdoors after losing their homes or for fear of getting hurt in their homes due to the earthquakes and tremors that have been felt since late December. In the last week, several of these earthquakes have registered magnitudes between 5.7 and 6.4 on the Richter scale. While the greater damage has taken place in the south, the earthquakes are being felt and continue to wreak havoc among all Puerto Ricans, who continue to adapt their day-to-day lives to the unannounced terrors of this seismic activity - the greatest in over a century.
As you already know, Puerto Rico is still immersed in an economic and fiscal crisis, and Puerto Ricans have yet to receive the billions in federal aid that Congress approved following the devastation of Hurricanes Irma and María. It is up to non-governmental organizations like ours and those we support to once again come to the rescue of our brothers and sisters on the island. Here are some recent articles about the crisis:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/us/puerto-rico-earthquake-inspections-aid.html
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/12/795661012/aftershocks-in-puerto-rico
Teens4PR is a 501(c)(3) organization, incorporated as a not-for-profit under the laws of the State of New York (EIN: 82-4641803)