Bay Area Turkish community organizing donations for Turkey-Syria earthquake relief
Members of the Bay Area's Turkish community are doing whatever they can do to help the earthquake relief efforts from afar.
Elif Sensurucu single-handedly launched an international relief flight. Most of Sensurucu's family lives in Adana City in Turkey.
"This all happened Monday, Sunday evening for us," said Sensurucu. "So with this short notice all I could think of was to let people come and drop it off here."
Sensurucu has been collecting warm clothing and personal products to send back to her home country. The live video feeds coming from Adana show people milling in the streets or huddled around fires in the freezing cold. Most escaped with only the clothes on their backs.
"It's hard," said Sensurucu. "All my family's still in Turkey, so it's very hard to see this from afar. Which is why I started little things that I could. I've been trying to fundraise through friends and the donations I've been collecting. I wanted to just have an impact. So all of this -- even a pair of socks -- is a life-saver."
The only reason any of the donations will end up in the country is because Turkish Airlines agreed to send a flight from SFO Thursday carrying the relief supplies. But that was also Sensurucu's doing.
"I was the one to call and ask if this would be an option," she said, "and they said that they would make it happen."
But Sensurucu is not alone. At UC Berkeley, some of her Turkish friends are also collecting material for the flight.
Can Jozef Saul says while it's comforting to see so many willing to donate, there is still a crushing feeling of helplessness.
"Honestly, I feel at peace seeing people helping as much as they can," said Saul. "But whatever this is, it's very minimal at the end of the day. The actual cause is making us sad every single second."
"Seeing the photos and the videos that have come out of it makes my life, some of the things I'm dealing with, seem so unimportant," added Sensurucu. "It's just... if it's not that, at least I can do what I can to help."
Individual efforts like these may seem small in the face of such a massive catastrophe. But if the question is how much can one person do to really make a difference, the answer is: Whatever they can.
The first Turkish Airlines relief flight leaves Thursday morning, but there will be others. Volunteers are taking donations through Friday.
