Valentina Platt-Higgins and her brother want their Rye neighbors to help Venezuelan children who lost their families when twin earthquakes devastated communities across northern Venezuela on June 24.

Why this tragedy felt personal to them.

The siblings, whose mother is from Venezuela, launched a GoFundMe campaign called "Rising for Venezuela" to support orphaned children in the disaster zone. "My brother and I felt that simply watching the details of this tragedy was not enough," Platt-Higgins wrote in a personal essay. "We wanted to do something to help."

The scale of what happened.

The June 24 earthquakes struck just 39 seconds apart near the coastal city of Morón, measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 — among the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century. As of July 20, more than 5,000 people had died and over 16,700 were injured. A preliminary United Nations assessment estimated $37 billion in direct damage to buildings and infrastructure. UNICEF estimates roughly 650,000 people may need assistance, including about 234,000 children, calling it "a major child-focused humanitarian emergency." UNICEF representative Manuel Rodríguez Pumarol said the agency's priority is making sure the earthquakes don't "take away their future" from children now orphaned or displaced.

What moved two siblings to act.

Platt-Higgins wrote that she drew inspiration from civilian rescuers who dug through rubble with their bare hands, including a volunteer known as "El Topo Venezolano" — The Venezuelan Mole — who pulled survivors from collapsed buildings by hand. She hopes Rye can offer its own version of that same instinct: showing up for people whose lives have been upended, even from thousands of miles away.

How to help.

Donations can be made anytime at on the GoFundMe page, with no stated deadline. The siblings also post updates on the fundraising effort and conditions in Venezuela through the campaign's Instagram account.