Need Help In Puerto Rico? Here's $100
If Karian Batista had $100, she would buy food. "I don't have enough for the kids," she says. Distributing cash, a growing trend in aid, gives people "dignity and choice," one organization says.
Before they hand over the cash, Mercy Corps staffers are going door to door to find out: What would people buy?
If Karian Batista had $100, she would buy food. "I don't have enough for the kids," she says.
Batista, 30, lives at the bottom of a hill on the outskirts of Maricao, a mountain town. Hurricane Maria tore the roof off her prefab house, and now she is living with her husband and two kids at her father-in-law's house next door. There's a plastic receptacle that looks like a giant blue trash bin on the roof for collecting rainwater. There still isn't running water or power in the area — like much of the country.
Family members arebarely scraping by. They live on the income from her husband's part-time job, where he works four hours a
