PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Most of Dounia Tamri-Loeper’s family is in Morocco, where she is from. Her mother lives in Marrakesh and was there Friday night, when a devastating earthquake struck, killing more than 2,900 people and injuring at least 5,530 more.
“She's elderly. She's 78 years old. She was on the fifth floor. She was terrified,” Tamri-Loeper said of her mother. “She was sleeping. She woke up with the house shaking.”
Tamri-Loeper is one of nearly 6,000 Morroccans in Pennsylvania who are now navigating that trauma from afar. Though she’s thankful that everyone in her family is safe from harm, many of her friends and colleagues are still waiting for word on their loved ones.
“It's heartbreaking. It's awful. And they're still, you know, pulling people out of the rubble. They're still trying to save lives,” she said.
There is a tremendous effort on the ground there as thousands of trucks from larger cities like Casablanca and the capital city Rabat are delivering supplies to remote areas.
“It's hard. It's hard to be away from them. It's hard. You feel hopeless, it's horrible. I want to pack up and go, I really do.”
However, Tamri-Loeper says, she can be more effective from this side of the Atlantic.
She owns Dounia Home, a high-end home furnishings store in Frenchtown, New Jersey, with an office in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Her customers come to her for a slice of Marrakesh, where all of her merchandise is handcrafted.
Now, her trans-Atlantic connections are helping her contribute to Morocco’s recovery.
“I'm talking to my people that are on the ground, helping every single day — almost, you know, twice, three times a day — to figure out where they are, what they're doing, what is needed, you know. And it's a tragedy,” she said.
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Tamri-Loeper has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for relief efforts. She says she sends the money to the artists she works with in Morocco who are buying food, clothing, water and other necessities and transporting it to the devastated remote areas. She says they’ve helped at least 250 families so far.
“They're buying water, food, oil and flour and rice and all those necessities and taking them in the vans, the trucks and the cars that they can find. These are local people,” she said.
Tamri-Loeper is looking to partner with any organization in the area that can help. Right now money is key but she says they will eventually start collecting items such as tents and sleeping bags.