In August of 2018 Luis Javier Hernandez the Mayor of Villalba Puerto Rico traveled to Hoboken NJ to meet with Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla and City Council President Ruben Ramos Jr. Mayor Hernandez described the conditions of his city after Hurricane Maria and the challenges he is faced with. Mayor Bhalla decided to adopt Villalba, Puerto Rico as Hoboken’s sister city and committed to help them by donating 3 police cars and 360 bullet proof panels to be used with their bullet proof vests to help his police force. On Wednesday, January 16, 2019 the city council unanimously voted to donate 3 Hoboken police cars and 360 bullet proof vests to the city of Villalba, Puerto Rico to help rebuild their fleet.
In addition to the police equipment Director Leo Pellegrini, The Puerto Rican Culture Committee, Hoboken High school Hispanic club, More4amore, and Joe Branco decided to collect used kids soccer and baseball equipment to send to the boys and girls of Villalba Puerto Rico. With the help of the Hoboken Community we collected a lot of equipment.
The Rotary Club of Jersey City will be handling all the logistics to help ship and deliver all 3 police cars, vests, and kids sporting equipment we have been collecting over the last couple of months.
We are having a fundraiser on Monday, February 11th at Texas Arizona in Hoboken. We are having this event to bring awareness to our mission and to raise money to assist with some of the transportation costs associated with the donation of these items to Puerto Rico.