The newest members of the Venezuelan diaspora can be found every Friday at the Value Store It Self Storage in Doral. On the fluorescent-bright fourth floor, four units are stacked to the ceiling with donated sheet sets, towels, dishes, toys, clothes, and, on this day, 60 boxes of floral slip-on women’s shoes. The recipients begin arriving at 2 p.m.: a public accountant and his journalist wife, a veterinarian, a registered nurse with her baby and 10-year-old daughter in tow. All have been in the U.S. for mere months. “I didn’t know there were places like this,” says Idianna Diaz, the nurse, who started to cry after collecting some kitchenware and a microwave.
They’re mostly young, educated professionals and have been arriving in greater numbers as they flee political persecution or the collapsing economy. In Doral, a Miami suburb where Venezuelans and Americans of Venezuelan extraction represent more than a third of the population, Patricia Andrade says she began fielding desperate calls in 2015. “There were so many of them,” says Andrade, who emigrated from Caracas in the 1980s. “They needed everything.” To help the new arrivals get on their feet, she founded a charity that solicits donations from the community. Her organization now stages the weekly giveaways.
