TWO sisters have lauded the “outstanding” Jersey community for their help providing clothing, toiletries and bedding to people left homeless and without basic utilities after widespread flooding in Portugal.
Dalila and Marilyn Gomes organised a series of bake sales at Smile Laundry in Gorey Village to raise money and collect essential supplies for people in their family village affected by months of extreme and unprecedented weather.
Responding to calls for Portuguese communities overseas to offer support wherever possible, the warm-spirited laundry owners called upon their immense reserves of local goodwill to raise thousands of pounds for a cause close to their hearts.
In their family village of Alvaiázere, they added, more than 95% of residents had lost their homes, with the storm causing houses to fall “like they’re made of clay.”
The twins travelled to Portugal on 11 April with a van-load of essential goods, and were quickly astonished by the level of destruction wrought upon the country.
“We went there for a week and we never stopped,” Dalila explained. “There’s a hospital there and they depend on people like us to donate.”
With the money raised in Jersey they were able to donate “toiletries, jumpers, bedding and clothes”.
The hospital were so grateful for the resources that a commemorative plaque was dedicated to the sisters, and Jersey’s fundraising efforts more generally.
Marilyn continued: “We then went into the village – oh my god – people were asking for food, people were so desperate for food; and these people still have got no water, no electricity.”
Despite the roads being “torn up” and resembling an “earthquake”, the laundry owners were able to travel around the area by van and help afflicted locals with their “three massive pallets of stuff” brought over from Jersey.
They relied on the expertise of an old family friend named Sandra, who they described as their “guardian angel”.
Dalila said: “She works for the church and she knows a lot of people that lost their homes and things.
“Without Sandra we would never have been able to help the amount of people that we did.”
Reflecting on an experience both “humbling” and “draining” in equal measure, the sisters praised Islanders who went “above and beyond” to show their support.
Dalila said: “We said to them, we’re going ourselves and whatever you donate, me and Marilyn are going to go and buy the things – and that’s what we did.
“And it was incredibly successful, everyone was so happy, and we are very happy with what we’ve done and – you know – everyone helped us.”
Marilyn explained that their fundraising efforts benefited from their “family-like” relationship with customers.
“We’d just like to say thank you to all the customers – and the friends, families and businesses that donated – especially people that donated toiletries, cakes and clothes; they donated so much.
“Our customers, they are our family, they’re not friends – they’re really like a family, and you need that.”
The twins are now in the process of planning a car boot sale, the proceeds of which are ear-marked for the helping the local hospital in Alvaiázere.
