Hult student helps organize earthquake relief for her family’s hometown

While balancing classes at Hult International Business School in Cambridge and work at her family’s coffee company, Natalie Ramirez has spent the past month organizing earthquake relief efforts for her family’s hometown in Colombia.

Earthquake impact and official data

“One of my biggest passions as a person is community and where I come from,” said Ramirez, 20, a junior at Hult whose family is originally from Balboa, Colombia, where an Aug.

10 earthquake damaged more than 600 homes. She said the disaster left many residents without essential supplies such as food, water and shelter.

“They have been our family,” Ramirez said. “They have been our friends. These are the people that were my babysitters and [helped raise me].

And they’re hurting.”

After the earthquake, Ramirez said she and her family, who now live in New Jersey, began organizing aid through their coffee company, Rey Sol Coffee Roasters, which has shops in Ridgewood and Morristown, N.J.

Ramirez has worked with her mother and sister to collect and send supplies to Balboa.

Her mother in New Jersey has been receiving in-person donated supplies like medicine, food and materials for shelter.