José Andrés' Nonprofit Serves Over 12,000 Meals To Puerto Rico Earthquake Victims

Chef and restaurant owner José Andrés speaks at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2019. Cliff Owen/AP Photo hide caption

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Cliff Owen/AP Photo

José Andrés is back at it.

The celebrity chef and philanthropist is serving free meals through his nonprofit World Central Kitchen to victims affected by two massive earthquakes that hit Puerto Rico earlier this week.

On Wednesday, Andrés posted the first in a series of videos to Twitter following his team's efforts to deliver meals to people camped out in athletic stadiums and outdoor areas across Puerto Rico.

So far, the team has assisted four separate operations, providing food and resources to people in Yauco, Peñuelas, Guánica and Guayanilla. Wednesday it served nearly 10,000 meals and delivered fresh water to people in Yauco with plans to do the same at the other locations. By Friday, Andrés said the teams had served more than 12,000 meals.

Alongside the Hispanic Federation, Word Central Kitchen is also providing solar lamps to the people of Puerto Rico in anticipation of power outages.

In Yauco Thursday, the team is serving approximately 1,100 people for dinner and lunch, respectively, with multiple kitchens working to prepare sandwiches and hot food.

"Today we felt some tremors still. So imagine, if you're living in a place where you feel afraid that your house may go down you don't want to sleep inside, you want to sleep outside. And this is what it is — relief from people being afraid of their home falling on top of them," Andrés said in a video.

Andrés said he and his crew will continue to serve lunch and dinner for the next few days until the situation calms down and, so far, things are going well.

World Central Kitchen served more than 3.5 million meals in Puerto Rico in 2017 after Hurricane Maria and has performed similar work at other disaster sites around the world.