This story was originally published in Architectural Lighting.
Lighting designer Angelica Santana has put out a call to her colleagues in the lighting design community to contribute to her disaster relief efforts for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. The Category 4 storm was the third hurricane to affect the island in September and Maria’s devastation, in particular, knocked out the island’s power grid and has caused widespread damage and flooding. Santana set up a donation portal via YouCaring, a crowdfunding website designed for “providing free and easy online fundraising and support for humanitarian causes.” The link to the page is www.youcaring.com/iesdcpuertorico.
NOAA
Satellite photos showing Puerto Rico at night prior to Hurricane Maria, and afterwards on Sept. 25, 2017, in complete darkness, save for a few emergency generators, due to the destruction of the power grid and loss of electricity.
Although this is an individual effort, Santana has the support of the Illuminating Engineering Society Washington D.C. section, of which she is past-president and a board member. She selected the Foundation for Puerto Rico (FPR)—“a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works with a defined plan to develop Puerto Rico’s social and economic potential”—as the recipient of the money raised. The FPR “has completely diverted its mission to coordinating relief efforts and distributing large scale donations to vetted organizations making immediate and long term recovery impacts on the ground.”
On her decision to choose YouCaring, Santana says, “I was looking for a website that would not take a percentage out of donations for using platforms and this one came up. Plus, they had an easy PayPal setup so I …. can easily transfer [the funds] to FPR.”
Santana grew up in Carolina, Puerto Rico, in the San Juan metro area. Her family still lives on the island. After high school in Puerto Rico, Santana moved to the mainland to attend Penn State, where she studied architectural engineering with a focus in lighting design and electrical systems. After graduation, she worked for Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design in New York, and for the past four years has been at CM Kling in Alexandria, Va.
At the time I write this, Santana is nearing the halfway mark to her $10,000 goal. You can check it out here: www.youcaring.com/iesdcpuertorico. If you have further questions, Angelica Santana can be reached via email at Angelica@cmkling.com.
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